


A Dented Old Street Sign

by orphanghost



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Character Interpretation, And I cannot emphasize this enough: A Huge Crush, Building Friendships, Christmas, Domestic Fluff, Draco has anxiety, Drinking, Dudley appears suddenly in Draco's living room at one point, HP: EWE, Hogwarts Eighth Year, Lots of conversation, M/M, Mentions of past abuse, Only Nice Things Happen, Roommates, Warm and Fuzzy Feelings, basically the fic equivalent of a pleasant walk in the sunshine on a balmy day, draco has a crush, implied PTSD, sort of, the Three Broomsticks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-10
Updated: 2017-01-10
Packaged: 2018-09-16 02:23:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 27,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9269438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphanghost/pseuds/orphanghost
Summary: Draco knows they aren't the only students who will be completing their NEWTs this year, but they are the only ones whose home fireplaces were disconnected from the floo network by the ministry.At least, Draco assumes as much until he sees the light falling out from the front door of one of the other rickety old houses in front of them and the three figures cast in its warm glow. For a moment they look like some sort of strange, many legged creature. An acromantula, or a particularly massive Blast-Ended Skrewt. Then Draco hears Pansy make a disgusted sound beside him and the light falls in a less blinding way, and Draco can see that it is actually Potter and the Weasel carrying a large couch between them, and Granger fluttering around them with her wand out, seeming concerned.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this purely for myself as self-indulgent fluff, and it has been sitting 90% finished on my google docs for, oh, about a year. I have re-read it whenever I need a bit of a pick-me up, and I thought others might enjoy this plot-less mess in the same vein. So here it is!

The house in Hogsmeade is two stories tall and it creaks like it is going to fall over whenever a strong wind picks up. It’s only the first day of autumn, but the building is always full of chilly draughts. Draco leans out the window of his bedroom and watches the quiet street below.

It is evening. The sun is setting and painting the cobbled path gold and lilac. It rained earlier, and the stones are glistening with small puddles that look now like gems. From where he watches, Draco can see he train line winding off like a snake into the distance and far, far away the glint of red and the chug-chug-chugging cloud of billowing grey smoke which signals the approach of the Hogwarts Express.

The sleeves of his robes are getting wet where he leans his elbows on the window sill. The wood is almost soft with age and rain. He has a bottle of daisyroot cider held loosely between his fingertips. The light taste lingers on his tongue from his last lukewarm slug. He raises it to his lips again and takes another slow drink, dragging his eyes away from the twisting path of the train. He turns to look off into the other distance, where the tall towers and turrets of Hogwarts stretch up into the lavender sky. The sun falls behind them, tracing the walls in gold.

It feels strange to not be on the train himself, approaching that castle as night falls around him. He wonders what he would be feeling, if he were on board. Would he be excited? Or perhaps full of dread and shame. He remembers that this time last year he had been sitting in a compartment with Pansy, Crabbe and Goyle, staring taciturn out the window and watching as the village he is waiting in now slowly hazed into sight out of the semi-darkness. He had felt hollow. He maybe ought to have felt scared or relieved to be escaping the manor, if only for a time.

But he hadn't. He had felt only the dull movements of the train around him, shaking through him in lieu of feelings. It wasn't as though he had known what to feel, or what would be coming. Everything had felt as uncertain as the slow oncoming creeping night.

With another sip of cider, he closes his eyes. He takes a deep breath through his nose.

Another glance in the direction of the train shows it to be a ruby glint in what is left of the sunlight, closer now.

Downstairs, he hears Blaise call his name. His voice carries through the cracks and crannies in the house with a strange echoing acoustic, making it sound like he's standing right behind him.

Draco doesn't bother taking another look at the castle. He will be back there soon enough. He straightens up and closes the window after him, wedging it with difficulty into the warped frame. As he wanders out onto the landing, he finds Pansy waiting for him, leaning against the bannister and looking disgruntled.

'Come, darling.' She steps forward, taking his arm. She brushes away Draco's own dew damp hair from his face. 'You're all wet, look at you. Handsome as ever, though.'

He smiles weakly, because Pansy's simpering voice sounds weak too. Fragile and nervous. She has dressed herself up, even though they are only taking dinner down the street at the local. For the first time all summer she is wearing makeup; smokey black around her eyes and a garish apricot colour on her lips which clashes terribly with the pastel green robes she's got on. She looks more like the old Pansy, rather than the reserved version of herself who stayed curled up on the sofa all summer, first at her family home and then here, when they moved in.

Draco kisses her forehead. 'You look stunning,' he tells her. Once upon a time he had been able to make Pansy erupt into a fit of blushing giggles with the right nice words. Not so much these days. She still seems to brighten a little, running a hand through her hair.

Together they go downstairs to the small, rickety kitchen where Goyle and Blaise are waiting for them. Goyle is a hulking figure at their tiny kitchen table, looking for all the world like everything around him is built for house elves. Blaise is already at the door. He's leaning against the frame and looking out onto the street as though he's bored, but Draco knows that he is impatient.

Up at the school, everyone will be sitting down to the welcome feast in a few hours. Oh, that would be glorious, Draco thinks. As much as he likes the Three Broomsticks, their dining fare is average. The Hog’s Head is, naturally, out of the question for meals.

'Let's go, then,' he announces to Goyle and Blaise. Goyle pushes his chair back with a loud scrape and stands up, nearly banging his head on the pots and pans that hang overhead. Blaise just turns his head slowly to look at Draco and Pansy with a disbelieving expression.

'What's the hurry?' Pansy asks him in exasperation.

'There is no hurry. Why would there be a hurry?' Blaise looks down at his impeccable fingernails. 'We said six fifteen, and it's nearly six thirty. That's all.'

Pansy opens her mouth to retort, but Draco speaks over her before she has the chance. 'Well, we're ready now,' he says to Blaise. 'We can leave.'

The lamps that line their narrow lane just off the main street of Hogsmeade are just flickering into light as they step outside, casting dancing shimmers on the rain splattered windows around them. Draco doesn't really expect to run into anyone as they make their way to the Three Broomsticks. He knows they aren't the only students who will be completing their NEWTs this year, but they are the only ones whose home fireplaces were disconnected from the floo network by the ministry. Well, save for Zabini's. He was just looking for an excuse to move out of his mother's place, as far as Draco can ascertain. The rest of the returning unofficial NEWTs students will be flooing to the castle to attend their lessons and continuing to live at home.

At least, Draco assumes as much until he sees the light falling out from the front door of one of the other rickety old houses in front of them and the three figures cast in its warm glow. For a moment they look like some sort of strange, many legged creature. An acromantula, or a particularly massive Blast-Ended Skrewt. Then Draco hears Pansy make a disgusted sound beside him and the light falls in a less blinding way, and Draco can see that it is actually Potter and the Weasel carrying a large couch between them, and Granger fluttering around them with her wand out, seeming concerned.

'I can levitate it in,' she is saying, and Weasley just grunts. He seems to be bearing most of the weight of the couch, but Potter is making a valiant effort on the other end at getting it up the steps, despite being as short and runty as he is.

'Don't-- levitate-- it--' Potter gasps out. 'Shrink it.' He takes another wobbling step up the small stairs leading to their narrow front door. 'It-- won't-- get-- thr--'

He doesn't have to finish speaking. As Draco watches, Granger waves her wand and the couch contracts to a miniature version of itself, no larger than a jack russell terrier. Weasley makes a dive to catch the diminutive chair and rushes up the steps to get it into what, heaven forbid, must be their house.

Potter brushes his sweaty hair out of his face. 'Thanks Hermione,' he says, grinning at her. None of them seem to have noticed the four Slytherins watching them yet.

Granger folds her arms. 'Why didn't you wait for me to get back downstairs? Or _shrink it yourselves_?'

Waving her off, Potter wanders out onto the street to pick up a pot plant. 'Thought it would be easier,' he says. There is a large pile of miscellaneous pieces of furniture clustered on the cobbled path, most of it looking slightly damp. Good for the plants at least, Draco muses.

Potter, however, has finally spotted them. Out of the corner of his eyes Draco sees Pansy make an aborted movement as though she is about to hide. Potter stares at them for a long moment over the large dusty pink fronds of the fern in his arms. Then he mutters to Granger, 'We've got company.'

She turns to look over her shoulder, jumping a little and reaching automatically for her wand. When she catches sight of them, she drops her hand. Draco folds his arms, suddenly feeling defensive. Pansy is tense enough that Draco can feel it coming off her in waves, and Goyle seems to be shaking slightly on his other side. Blaise is staring at a brick on the ground.

'Oh.' Granger takes a step backward, toward a stack of wooden chairs. 'Hello.'

Potter's face is still mostly hidden by fern, his eyes grim and narrowed. He takes a few steps towards the front door of the house and calls inside after Weasley. To Draco it feels like he's gathering reinforcements.

'Welcome to the neighbourhood,' Draco says as smoothly as he can manage. He takes a step forward, past Blaise, making to keep moving down the street toward the pub. 'I hope you have better luck with your plumbing than we did. Someone had put a tightening charm on our pipes a century ago as a quick fix, and Pans tried to take a shower our first night and they burst. It was a disaster. Water everywhere, boxes soaked, the rug in the hall ruined - I think it’s gone mouldy on the...'

He can hear himself babbling and quickly shuts his mouth. Behind the pot plant, Potter's eyes are suspicious. Weasley has poked his flaming head out of the door now too, still carrying the couch under his arm.

'Live here then, you lot?' he asks loudly.

'Number seven,' Blaise replies, and then hisses. Draco isn't looking, but he suspects that Pansy elbowed him in the side.

'School?' Granger asks. Draco nods. Behind him, Pansy snaps, 'What is it to you?' and then hisses in her own turn. Blaise getting retaliation, no doubt.

'Hm.' Weasley regards them carefully, then turns back inside. Potter follows with the fern. Draco takes another few steps forward, hoping that the others will follow, and can't resist tilting his head a little to see inside the other house. It's basically identical to their own, as far as he can tell. The front hall leads straight onto the stairs to the upper landing, and on one side shoots off to a cramped kitchen (here he can see Potter placing the plant on the end of the counter) and opens up to a cozy living room on the other.

Granger is watching him snoop. Draco quickly drags his gaze away as Potter turns to come back outside, then dodges out of the way as Granger passes him, carrying a chair. Draco glances back. Pansy, Goyle and Blaise still have not moved.

'Dinner?' Draco prompts to them. 'Blaise? So much for hurrying us out of the door.'

'You're not going to the Three Broomsticks?' Potter says as he bends for a box labeled "Books 6/17" in neat cursive script that can only be Granger's. He tries to lift it, immediately regrets it, pulls out his wand and levitates it into the air.

Draco tries for a sneer. It feels shaky on his lips. 'We are. It's allowed.'

'Yeah, it is,' Potter replies. Granger's bushy head pops back out of the door, and Potter calls to her. 'Maybe we should do Hog's Head tonight.'

'Locormortis,' she says, pointing her wand at the other three dining chairs still on the street. They begin to waddle towards her, one of them slipping on the wet ground. It rights itself quickly and scarpers after the others up the steps. 'Why?'

Potter gives her a meaningful look, similar to the one Draco gives his friends, urging them to follow him. Blaise takes a few steps forward, but Pansy and Goyle may as well be devil's snared to the spot.

'Don't be stupid,' Draco says to Potter. 'You'll get a sepsis infection. The Broomstick's plenty big for all of us.'

'The food at the Hog's Head isn't that bad,' Potter lies, just as Weasley comes outside again.

'I unshrunk the couch!' he announces triumphantly. 'Wait, are these bastards trying to get us to eat in the Hog's Head? They can have the bloody Hog's Head. I'll go there for a pint, fine. But I am never touching those chips ever again.'

'No one has to go to the Hog's Head,' Draco says, throwing up his hands. 'We're all adults here aren't we, Potty? Weasel?'

Potter snorts. Weasley looks unconvinced. Goyle finally takes a few tentative, lumbering steps after Draco, who reaches out, beckoning him forward.

'I want a steak and kidney pie,' he mutters, which Draco knows to mean that Goyle thinks this is all officially taking too long and distracting from dinner, and he quietly agrees. It also means Goyle would like to eat at the Three Broomsticks, because the steak and kidney pie at the Hog's Head is pretty renowned for being sourced extremely mysteriously. Although, on second thought, Draco isn't actually sure Goyle cares.

'We can get you pie and chips and a pint,' Draco says kindly. 'If Pansy would move her skinny arse.'

'Hey!' Pansy retorts and finally moves, if only to turn on the spot and look at her own bottom. 'Draco, you said I looked stunning!'

'He said that to get you out of the house,' Blaise drawls.

'I didn't.'

'Well, I would have.'

'Yes, you would say anything if it would fit the world to your schedule, Blaise,' Draco snaps.

A wistful look crosses Blaise's face. 'Oh, yes.'

The three Gryffindors are now standing together, pausing in moving their belongings into the house to watch them bicker. Draco turns on them. 'We'll see you at the pub then,' he huffs, and takes a few strides back to pull Pansy along by the wrist. She loops her arm with his possessively, giving Granger a look that is maybe supposed to be smug. Draco sighs internally.

'Ugly fern,' he sniffs at Potter as he passes, and they finally resume their walk to the Three Broomsticks.

He thinks he hears Potter say to Granger behind him, 'It is ugly, you know.'

'It's cat-safe!' she says. 'It's for Crookshanks!'

*

It is the strangest back to school feast Draco has ever had. He orders pretty much everything on the Three Broomsticks menu, because it isn't a first day back at Hogwarts (even though he won't be going into the castle until Wednesday) without watching Goyle consume his body weight in food. _And Crabbe too_ , Draco's brain helpfully reminds him, and Draco squeezes his eyes shut for a moment, pausing halfway between the bar and their table in the busy pub, holding a tray of drinks and nearly getting barrelled over by other patrons.

His hands are shaking slightly when he puts the tray down in front of Pansy and says, 'Veela's Delight,' passing her a shimmering silver cocktail. 'And one for Blaise,' he adds, handing him an identical drink. He gives Goyle a pint, and takes his own bottle of cider. He takes a fast sip, then a long swallow, then another.

When the food arrives, Goyle tucks reliably in while the rest of them eat slower and try to chat. But conversation is stilted and punctured by long bouts of silence. Pansy is making an effort, but she's only talking about inane Witch Weekly crap that Draco doesn't care about, and Blaise keeps leaning back in his chair and looking off into the distance as though he's not part of their group and just happens to be sitting adjacent.

'At least we don't have to sit through the sodding sorting,' Draco says, playing with a piece of asparagus on the end of his fork. 'Endless drivel.'

They are probably only half way through the alphabet up at the castle. A terrified, dwindling line of trembling children waiting to put on an old hat.

Goyle grunts, which Draco takes for agreement, and Pansy makes a considering sound in her throat. 'It's not so bad,' she says, plastering on a watery smile. 'Gave me you boys, didn't it?'

Goyle grunts again, Blaise makes a noise that indicates discomfort with emotions, and Draco says, 'Shut up, Pants.'

She scowls.

For a long while, Draco feels on edge. He is waiting tensely for those three bloody Gryffindor heroes to walk through the door and cause a scene handing out signed photographs or whatever it is they do these days. But time passes and they polish off their dinners. Goyle practically licks the plates clean and speaks for the first time since they walked into the pub to ask if anyone else wants dessert.

He ends up with a bowl of pudding which steams with Ogden's Finest whiskey; Draco gets a cheese platter to share with Blaise and Pansy and joins them in a round of cocktails. He gets something that is a mix of butterbeer and citrus liquor and he is finally starting to relax, thinking that maybe Potter and his friends have decided not to come to the Three Broomsticks after all, when the door opens. A balmy, ozone scented breeze prickles over his neck and he turns around, catching sight of a tall pillar of freckles and lanky limbs, a flurry of bushy dark hair, and a couple of inches of speccy midget between them, mostly hidden by the other patrons.

The low whisper starts off barely audible and then grows in quiet intensity as people carve a berth around Potter and start to elbow their drinking companions and point. To his credit, however, Potter doesn't pull out a stack of ready autographs. Instead he slips into Draco's view, and he is just wiping sweat off his forehead, pushing hair off his face and smiling sheepishly.

He meets Draco's eyes for an instant and fans himself, apparently to indicate that moving is hard work. Draco turns back to his brie. He's just cutting off a thick wedge and helping himself to a dollop of quince jam when Pansy reaches across the table to tap him sharply on the forearm.

'Look! Look!' she says urgently, and Draco nearly jumps out of his skin. He's whipping his head around so fast that his neck nearly cracks and his fingers immediately dart to brush over the wand in his pocket. Not his wand. A borrowed one. His grandfather's, left in the family. It feels cold and old and hollow. But Pansy only cackles. 'Oh, that's cute, isn't it? They're together.'

She drags out the end of the word in a crooning drawl. It's Granger and Weasley. Potter has ducked away from their table to order, or get drinks, or pop to the men's, leaving the other two alone to suck face. And suck face they do. Enthusiastically. Then they pull apart to stare soppily at each other.

'Adorable,' Draco replies flatly. 'Thanks for pointing that out, Pans. Definitely something I needed to see with my eyeballs.'

Pansy reaches for the cheese knife. 'Blood traitors and mudbloods,' she says, but her voice isn't derisive, exactly. She pulls a face as she tries and fails to neatly cut off some crumbling cheddar. 'I mean they can do what they want, obviously, but do they have to be so vulgar?'

'Coming from the woman who gets her tits out one round into King's Cauldron without fail,' Draco points out. Pansy, who has had three cocktails now, lights up at his words and grabs his empty cider glass, slamming it into the middle of the table.

'Excellent idea,' she says, and looks between them. 'Who can summon some cards?'

Blaise glances around, seeming to become aware that he's actually in the company of other people again. He looks aghast. 'We are in public,' he snaps at her.

She waves him off. 'Oh, no one cares.' Raising her voice, she asks the next table over (a gathering of warlocks wearing wellingtons); 'None of you mind if I take my robes off, do you?'

Draco practically throws himself across the table to take back the empty glass and hiss at Pansy, 'It's not one of the rules!'

'Well, it's how I've always played it.'

'We know,' say Blaise and Draco in unison, and then Goyle a second later: 'We know.'

'That's right,' Draco says encouragingly. 'See, even Goyle knows.'

'Oh, fine.' She rolls her eyes. 'Prudes, the lot of you.'

The warlocks in wellies sitting behind her look somewhat disappointed and Draco shoots them the most scathing glare he can muster. He's really lost his knack for being scathing recently, but he does his best and thinks he pulls a fair one out of the bag.

Blaise knocks back the last mouthful of his cocktail. 'House rule number six,' he announces. He's been coming up with house rules all week, since they moved into Hogsmeade. Most of them have involved the washing up, so far, although number two was _Blaise has first rights to the shower every morning because he refuses to wade around in any of your filth_. Draco is still contesting that one. But number six is the significantly more sensible: 'Once Pansy tries to get us playing King's Cauldron, it's time to wrap up for the evening.'

Draco mimes stamping a decree and pushes his stool back. He leans on Goyle as he waits for him to quickly shovel down the rest of his pudding and for Pansy to drain her cocktail glass. Draco didn't realise that he was a little tipsy until the moment he stood up, but now the world is swaying pleasantly, softened and smoother than the steaming pile of shit it has been for the longest time. He puts his arm around Goyle's shoulder and pats his broad chest.

Goyle glances up at him. 'You want some of my pudding?' he grunts.

Draco shakes his head, but says, 'Oh, go on then,' and opens his mouth when Goyle lifts up the spoon. He leans forward and takes a bite. It's cinnamony and fiery, warming him to his core. He glances over his shoulder.

Across the other side of the room, Potter is sitting back with his pals, who are respectfully not making out all over one another's faces. Weasley's arm is slung around Granger's shoulder along the back of the booth, but otherwise they are just chatting companionably with Potter.

None of them look over their direction, but from the fixed way Potter is reading the menu, Draco is pretty sure his eyes were trained on him until just a moment ago.

*

The following day, Draco spends all of the morning shut inside his bedroom, deluged in books. He studies Ancient Runes on the small desk under his window as the sun rises, bathing him in a pale strip of light. By the time the others start shuffling around the house he has moved onto Transfiguration and then he spends the last few hours before lunchtime on Arithmancy. He only ventures downstairs for tea top-ups and the occasional biscuit.

Pansy finds him in the kitchen on one such journey and leans against the counter in her soft, cozy looking pyjamas, eyeing him up and down.

'I could hear your quill scratching away at quarter past five,' she comments, yawning.

Malfoy pours himself tea from the large kettle on the stove, watching the steam swirl out of the spout. 'Mm.'

'Did you sleep at all?'

'Of course I slept,' Draco lies. When was the last time he slept properly? He wakes up to the sound of branches blowing in the wind against his window and hears Grayback walking down the hall outside his bedroom, dragging sharp nails on the walls. He hears water running as Blaise washes his hands and can almost feel the snake prowling the manor, thick, heavy body undulating on the floor like a living shadow.

Pansy holds her own teacup in both hands, up against her chest to keep warm against the morning chill.

Draco doesn't mention that Pansy was awake before the sun as well.

Instead he just goes back up to his room and studies some more, until Blaise comes up and raps on his door.

'You are the one who defiles your Earl Grey with milk,' he says to Draco. 'So you are the one who has to go and get more.'

Draco squeezes his eyes shut, trying to hold onto the train of thought that he had been clinging to a moment before. Something to do with Karuzos’ theory of Chaldean novem omission. But the thought is gone. He stands up abruptly, slamming his quill down. ‘Fine!' he snaps and storms past Blaise to crab his coat.

As he walks past the Potter and Co. residence, he's surprised to see their front door open. He can hear voices inside. Older voices: a man and a woman who he doesn't know. He slows his steps, catching sight of Granger just inside the door with two people who can only, judging by the look of them, be her parents.

Here.

In Hogsmeade.

Muggles.

He is not walking slowly anymore. He has stopped in his tracks, staring at them. They are wearing puffy, slightly sheened jackets and jeans, looking so distinctly non magical that Draco almost struggles to comprehend that they are real. He can see that Weasley is in the kitchen, chatting with them from behind Granger, and Potter is sitting on the stairs up to the landing, looking into a mug with a thoughtful expression. He doesn't seem quite engaged in the conversation.

Just as Draco is about to pull himself together and move his feet in the direction of the grocers’, Granger looks up and catches his eyes. Her lips part for a moment and then press together coldly. He nods to her. Following her gaze, her mother and father turn to look over their shoulders, smiling at him, apparently not knowing that they can't.

They can't look at, at a pureblood wizard, like that. No. Not with friendly smiles and casual waves and--

Draco forces his hand to move in a polite little wave back. 'Good morning,' he says. He doesn't say it loudly, but the village is quiet and his voice carries. Potter looks up from behind the Grangers to glare at him warningly.

Granger reaches out to touch her mother's arm, pulling her attention away from him, and Draco walks on. Only, a few moments later he hears light feet pounding on the pavement. Granger snatches him by the elbow and spins him around.

'Watch it,' he snaps at her, nearly stumbling.

Her eyes are fierce, but she's clearly trying to keep her voice down and her posture neutral. Her parents are still watching them. 'Don't talk to them,' she says.

Draco snorts. 'Why would I talk to your mum and dad, Granger? What are they even doing here?'

'Having lunch. And I don't know. You might just want to be awful to them.'

'I don't.'

'Malfoy-'

'I really don't, I'm just getting milk.'

'Okay.' She runs her hands over her thick hair, pulling the tight curls behind her head in a stressed gesture. She looks stricken. 'They don't know about the war.'

'Excuse me?'

'I haven't told them.'

Draco stares at her. He lived with a maniac for over a year and this is the maddest thing he has ever heard. How could anyone, anywhere, not know about the _war_? It happened. Here. Everywhere. People died. Muggles knew that something was happening, surely. They can't be that thick. 'But, how-?'

'It doesn't matter, Malfoy. It's a long story. But the point is, don't tell them. Don't mention anything about what happened.'

'I wasn't going to. I'm not even going to talk to them.'

She seems mollified. 'Okay,' she mutters, and takes a step away. 'Okay.'

Draco is back ten minutes later, milk bottle in hand. The Grangers are still there, now sitting in the kitchen. The windows are open so Malfoy can see and hear them clearly. Weasley is laughing loudly at something with them and Potter is at the bench, chopping up vegetables. He shoos Granger away when she tries to help.

Although it is not as warm out as yesterday, the day is bright and clear and Draco sees the street through different eyes. He imagines what it would look like to the Grangers, who don't know that the castle in the distance was ravaged by violence and death only a few months ago. Who don't know that people went missing from their houses. Who haven't seen the shop windows boarded up and people glancing around them in fear.

The street must seem quiet and peaceful to them. Welcoming. Happy households and friendly neighbours.

When he gets inside his own house, Draco barely manages not to let the milk bottle fall to the floor. He puts it down shakily before crumbling against the front door, breathing harshly. He sits there, curled up with his head in his arms for ten minutes before Goyle finds him.

Goyle lifts him to his feet, saying 'Gerrup.'

Wiping tears from his eyes (he's not _crying_ , not really, his eyes are just wet and he can't breathe), Draco shrugs him off. 'I don't have to stand up if I don't want to.'

'You're blocking the door.'

'I know!' Draco hisses defiantly, and moves to shoulder past his friend and go back upstairs. Goyle catches him by the sleeve and holds him steady.

'Okay?' he asks, looking confused. When Draco doesn't respond except to rub his eyes harder and make an erratic movement with his head that is neither a nod nor a shake, Goyle does the unthinkable. He opens his arms up, inviting a hug.

Draco huffs out a wry laugh. 'You inept troll,' he says. But the gesture has soothed some of the panic in his chest somehow, so he ducks in and wraps his arms around Goyle's broad torso, feeling heavy arms envelop him in turn. Draco snickers his way through the short hug before pulling back, wiping fresh tears from his eyes. They are easing though. Goyle still looks flummoxed.

'Are you going out?' Draco asks him.

'School.'

'Think you can find Charms without me?'

Goyle shrugs a huge shoulder. 'Yeah?'

'I have every faith in you,' Draco says untruthfully. There is a fair chance he'll end up in a first year herbology class, or Wales.

Goyle takes a couple of steps toward the door, turns the handle, and holds it ajar. He looks down at his shoes. 'It's good we're here together,' he mumbles.

'Yes, it is,' replies Draco with a slight smile. 'I'm glad.'

After Goyle has lumbered emotionally off to Hogwarts for his first class of the year, Draco climbs the stairs to his room and closes himself inside again with his books. He doesn't read them, though. He sits at his desk for a long time, staring at the pages and taking nothing in, before he moves to lie on his bed and make glittering shapes in the air above him with his unresponsive wand.

*

It is strange going up to Hogwarts for classes. They are not formal or instructed. Draco knows he would be frustrated if they were, if he were forced to sit in with the seventh years and listen to the same things he half-listened to last year. He knows it varies for everyone who is returning. Some, like Potter and Weasley and Granger didn't attend school at all last year. Some, muggleborns mostly, dropped out halfway through and went on the run, Draco supposes. But even students who stayed for the whole year like him and Pansy didn't have an uninterrupted education.

So they have it like this, to try to accommodate everybody. A few periods a week where they can go in and practice their transfiguration under McGonagall's supervision, or brew potions with Slughorn's input. But they each work at their own pace and the lessons, for lack of a better word, are a little hectic as everyone works on different (often noisy) things.

Today, Draco is alone with Granger in the Ancient Runes classroom with Professor Babbling and, for some reason, Potter, who is just sitting in and reading a Potions textbook with a look of intense concentration on his face.

Draco has one of the school manuscripts spread out in front of him along with his textbook and he's working through his translation methodically. The room is silent except for the turning of pages and the scratching of quills and the hushed conversation Granger is having with the professor at the front of the class about her work.

Draco is in the middle of flipping through his textbook, trying to remember what the symbol he is stuck on means in this context, when he hears Potter's intake of breath and then a quiet, 'Hermio--'

He seems to realise halfway through her name that she isn't sitting with him right now and is at the front of the room marking two runes on the board with her wand and pointing out a difference to Babbling, whose head is cocked to the side and eyes are narrowed.

Potter looks back down at his book and Draco watches him for a few moments. He makes a noise of frustration and sits up again, looking over at Hermione - who is definitely not about to stop her quiet discussion with Babbling any time soon.

Draco smirks and goes back to his translation. He finally finds the page he's looking for and starts to write again, when he senses Potter standing at his elbow. He glances up.

Potter is leaning down with one hand on Draco's desk, the other holding his Potions textbook open. 'Can you help me, Malfoy?' he asks, sounding like he's talking through gritted teeth. 'Do you understand about alchemical processes of wand use in potions?'

Draco leans back in his chair, raising his eyebrows at Potter. 'Aren't you a potions savant or something?'

Potter rolls his eyes. 'No.'

'Well, we happen to be in Runes, right now. I'm a little busy.'

'If you don't know, that's fine,' Potter says magnanimously, and Draco scowls. 'I'll ask Hermione later.'

'I _do_ know. I just don't have time to go around explaining simple concepts to people with the intelligence of flobberworms.'

'How did Crabbe and Goyle always get through their exams, then?' Potter asks, and Draco is torn for a moment between laughing, punching him, and getting embarrassingly upset again.

He forces himself to respond by tightening his lips and saying, 'Sheer dumb luck, one would have to assume.' He is hardly going to _admit_ to all the hours he has spent over the years in the Slytherin common room walking them both through their homework, step by laborious step.

The problem with Potter - here is the problem with Potter - is it is very easy to want to help him. Or rather, its very easy for Draco to want Potter to _need_ him. To his intense embarrassment, it has been something of a recurring fantasy over the years. To be needed by Potter, to be sought out. For a long time in the fantasy Draco would refuse to help him and mock him, let him fail at whatever it was his brain had cooked up. But then, sometimes he didn't. Sometimes he let his mind wander in other directions.

The fact that Draco's most humiliating fantasies are of being selfless is something he will take to the grave.

He can see in Potter's face that he's about to give up on Draco and head back to his desk to wait until Granger is free. Draco's resolve crumbles inside him like a tower of cards. He sighs, shiting over a little. Still in an undertone, he motions for Potter to pull over a chair. 'Do you understand what Budge has said about volatile potions ingredients and how they react with wand cores?'

Potter nods. 'Yeah, I think so. It's just that, um, if you try to combine uh, wand core materials in potions, it can react with the wizard's wand sometimes, changing the effects.'

'Sort of,' Draco replies, pushing his own textbook aside to look at Potter's. 'It's a question of reactions. Which ingredients cancel each other out. So, you add phoenix tears when you want to counteract a potentially venomous element in a potion, but then the wand has a phoenix feather core, what effect does that have?'

Unproductively, Draco spends the next twenty minutes discussing potions theory with Potter, so that his Runes translation is unfinished at the end of the class. Babbling doesn't care. He can just carry on with it next week, if he finds it productive. She does tell Potter, however, that he shouldn't sit in on her classes if he's going to distract her students and Potter apologises sincerely while Granger clears her paragraphs of writing off the board with a few waves of her wand.

The walk back to Hogsmeade is slightly uncomfortable. It's just the three of them - Runes finishes up late in the afternoon, so Pansy and Blaise have already headed home, and Goyle didn't have a class on today. Malfoy walks behind Granger and Potter a few paces, trying not to follow them. He considers diverting via the library and lingering for a bit so that he can avoid walking-not-walking with them. But it's getting late and he wants to get back home. Mother owled him this morning, he needs to write back. He wants a cuppa, and some of the cakes she sent with her letter.

Outside of the castle and on the path toward the village, the mild wind carries Granger and Potter's voices over their shoulders toward him. Draco buries his hands in the pockets of his robes, watching the grass under his feet. Merlin, but they talk about mundane things, these two. You would think with saving the world and all that Granger would be able to talk about something other than schoolwork.

After about fifteen minutes of walking, however, Potter lets out a sigh and the direction of their conversation changes.

'Are you still having second thoughts about tomorrow?' she asks him.

'Yeah. I mean, it's a pretty terrible idea.'

Malfoy glances up, curious. Tomorrow is Saturday, only two weeks into term. He'll be pretty impressed, actually, if Potter has already stirred up trouble for himself. Really, it shouldn't be possible.

'What's a terrible idea?' he calls loudly to them. Potter pauses in his step, glancing over his shoulder.

'Mind your own bloody business, Malfoy.' Potter is grinning lopsidedly though, probably in awareness of the fact that he just harassed Draco about potions work for half an hour and it is maybe not a great time to be an asshole to him.

'Oh, because your little adventures never end up impacting on the rest of us, do they?'

'I'm having my cousin over for tea tomorrow.'

'Huh, anticlimactic,' Draco says. 'Well, I suppose that shouldn't spiral out of control.'

Potter laughs. 'You don't know my cousin.'

Draco hums, conceding the point, now walking more or less level with Granger and Potter. 'Wait, this isn't the muggle cousin, is it?' he asks, suddenly.

'That's the one.'

'Merlin's beard, but what is it with you lot and bringing _muggles_ to Hogsmeade?'

'They were my parents,' Granger snaps at him. 'And they've been to Diagon Alley a bunch of times, they're not ignorant.'

'Well, okay,' Draco says, and jabs his thumb at Potter. 'But the Boy Who Lived here hates his muggles, everyone knows that.'

'My aunt and uncle are basically the human version of bubotuber pus, yeah,' Potter says. 'Only less useful. And my cousin Dudley might be too, really. But, I dunno. He's maybe alright. I'm trying to see if there's something to salvage there.'

The idea of hating your family is so foreign to Draco that he doesn't quite know what to say. He supposes it must be justified. Blaise's mother, for instance, never really had enough time for him, self absorbed as she was. Now he wants shot of her. Seems fair.

'I still don't understand why you want to bring him here, Harry,' Granger says. 'Isn't he terrified of magic?'

'Hah. Yeah.' Potter runs his hand through his wild hair, which is only wilder in the wind. 'That's why, really. I need it to be on my ground, not his. He's... met Ron. But the thing is I kinda need you there as well, Hermione. You might be a good, er, middle ground.'

'How is he getting here?' she asks.

'I'm apparating down to Privet Drive. We're going to use Mrs. Figg's fireplace and floo back here. I figure that short of spending hours on the train, floo would be the next best thing for him. If he can fit in the fireplace, that is.'

'Hm,' she says skeptically.

'If it all goes wrong, you can obliviate him,' Potter says, and Granger smiles wryly.

'We'll try to avoid that.'

Potter glances to Draco. 'You know, if he wasn't scared shitless of wizards and you didn't despise muggles, you and Dudders would probably get along. You could spend hours happily reminiscing about how much you hate me and what it's like to be spoiled gits.'

'I don't hate muggles,' Draco replies. 'I gave directions to one at Kings Cross one time. She seemed nice.'

Granger rubs the heel of her hand over her eye, looking exasperated.

*

Really, it's a good thing that Draco hears about Potter's cousin visiting, or else he might be shocked when his fireplace bursts to life the following evening and a huge boy about their age stumbles out looking terrified, catches sight of Blaise hovering his wine bottle over his glass, and lets out a hopeless whimper. Well, Draco would be _more_ shocked than he already is. He does still drop his own wine glass so that it shatters on the ground.

'What the fuck?' Pansy shouts from the upstairs landing. The massive muggle backs up against the wall, making a low sound in his throat like a cornered animal. Draco jumps to his feet in alarm, heart hammering in his chest. He pulls out his wand. The boy's eyes widen like saucers. He has short blond hair and is wearing baggy jeans with chains hanging off them, halfway down his hips.

Blaise just hovers down the wine bottle and casts reparo at the mess of broken glass around Draco's feet. As the glass reforms and he directs it onto the coffee table, he calls up to Pansy, 'Draco spilled some of the nice wine.'

Draco gestures pointedly. 'Uh, Zabini, in case you haven't noticed-!'

'Yes, yes, it's very startling,' Blaise says, rolling his eyes and sounding unaffected.

'Who- who are you?' the muggle asks, his voice quavering with fear.

'Nevermind us,' Draco snaps. 'Who are you?'

''M looking for Harry.'

Realisation floods Draco and his tense posture drops. He cards his fingers through his hair, casting about for a name. 'Oh, you must be... Dedul-- No, Dudley. Is that right?'

Dudley nods mutely, looking sick.

Pansy and Goyle finally make it into the room, coming up behind Draco. 'Is that a muggle?' Pansy asks incredulously.

'It's bloody Saint Potter's cousin.'

Pansy lets out a bark of manic laughter. 'Oh good, yes, let's _kidnap_ one of Potter's family members! That will look great in the Prophet!'

Dudley moans as though injured.

'Shut it, Pans, you're scaring him,' Draco says, and takes a cautious step forward. He reaches one hand slowly out and inclines his head slightly, not breaking eye contact with Dudley. Is it like approaching a hippogryph? 'He just went one fireplace too far.'

'Please don't kidnap me,' Dudley begs. 'Don't do nothing... weird.'

'Weird?' Blaise asks, sounding amused.

'Mmm.... Muh.... Mah....'

Blaise grins wickedly. 'Magic?'

Nodding, the blood drains from Dudley's already pale face. He looks nothing like Potter; huge where Potter is scrawny, fair and pale where Potter is jet black hair and dark skin. Draco would never have guessed they were related.

'Stop it,' he scolds Blaise. He lowers his voice to what he hopes is something soothing. 'Dudley, I'll walk you over to Potter's house, alright?'

Pansy snorts. 'It's not a unicorn foal, Draco. Take off the kiddy gloves.'

Draco ignores her. 'Alright?' he repeats.

Dudley eyes him warily, not answering.

To everyone's surprise, it's Goyle who saves the day. He lumbers out of the room and Draco thinks for a moment he's just gotten confused and bored with the proceedings. But he returns a few moments later with a bag of cauldron cakes, shoving one into his mouth before holding the paper bag out to Dudley.

'Want one?'

'Is it... safe?' Dudley asks, hesitating but looking sorely tempted.

Goyle just shrugs.

'Look, I'll eat one,' offers Draco, reaching into the bag and taking a large bite from one of the cakes. 'Perfectly safe, see? Pansy will have one too.'

'No, I won't! I'm trying to drop a robe size.'

But it makes no difference. Dudley has been convinced. He reaches into the bag and takes a cake. He takes a cautious nibble first, waits a few moments, and when nothing happens bites greedily in. 'S'good,' he says to Goyle. Goyle hands him another cake and this is apparently enough to seal their friendship.

'You'll take me over to Harry's?' Dudley asks Draco, licking his fingers for sticky icing.

Draco sighs in relief. 'Yes, and I'll hex him for disturbing my weekend,' he says, and Dudley doesn't seem to mind talk of magic so much when the threat is directed at Potter. He leads Dudley to the door, where Goyle gives the muggle boy an almost shy little wave goodbye.

'Get Potter to buy us a fresh bottle of wine!' Blaise calls out the window as Draco closes the front door behind him and Dudley.

'Is it far?' Dudley asks, looking around apprehensively at the subtle evidences of magic in every house. Brooms sweeping their porches alone, little hovering balls of light in upstairs windows. He still looks pale and a bit shaky, but he's eating his second cauldron cake like it's a lifeline.

'Hardly.' Draco folds his arms against the chill on the air. He jerks his chin a few doors down. 'The one with the flower box in the window and the door open.'

Dudley relaxes a bit further at that, trailing along beside Draco down the street. He's grumbling to himself a little now, wiping soot off his jeans. Fear seems to be giving way to irritation. When they pull up level to the house, Draco steps up to the open front door and calls inside, 'Potter! I have something of yours!'

In a flurry of robes and messy hair, Potter bolts down the stairs. Relief floods his face when he sees Dudley standing a few feet behind Draco. He shoves his way past, skidding to a halt on the front step. 'Oh thank god, Dudley,' he gasps. 'I was just about to call the floo commissioner.'

Instead of saying anything, Dudley just punches Potter (hard) in the arm and shoulders his way past him into the house. Rubbing at his bicep, Potter grimaces. 'I deserved that one,' he concedes. He turns to Draco. 'Did he...?'

'Burst out of our fireplace, make a commotion, cause me to break a priceless wine glass and forge a bond of immediate kinship with Goyle? Yes. Yes he did.'

Behind Potter, Granger's bushy head appears at the top of the stairwell, looking concerned. 'Is that him?'

'Yeah,' Harry calls back. 'He ended up in Malfoy's living room, you can tell Ron he can stop checking fireplaces.' He scratches his neck sheepishly, looking at Draco. 'Thank you. For bringing him.'

'Quite alright,' Draco replies. He inspects his fingernails. 'We were hardly going to keep him. Blaise is of the opinion that you owe us a bottle of wine, though.'

'Absolutely,' Potter agrees quickly. He glances over his shoulder at Dudley, who is now standing awkwardly in the hall, shuffling his feet and scowling. 'Would you like to come inside for a butterbeer?'

Draco starts. 'Ah-'

'Come on. I'm really grateful you got him back, that could have been a disaster.'

'Oh, fine then.' Feeling uncomfortable, Draco follows Potter into the house, where he leads both him and Dudley into the cozy living room, gesturing for them to sit down. Granger and Weasley come downstairs a moment later and Dudley jerks in his seat when he sees them. He's eyeing Weasley in apprehension, but the redhead just grins at him.

'Long time, no see,' he says, reaching out a freckled hand to Dudley to shake. 'How's it going?'

'Been better,' Dudley grumbles, and Draco snorts.

'Everyone for a butterbeer?' Potter asks before ducking into the kitchen. Draco can hear him clattering around, gathering bottles.

'Hi, Dudley.' Granger smiles kindly. 'Good to finally meet you.'

Draco notices that Granger has put effort into looking significantly less magical than usual. Instead of robes she is just wearing jeans and a cardigan, and her wand is out of sight. It might be paying off, because Dudley just grunts at her, not looking quite so put off as he does by Weasley (who is also wearing jeans and a t-shirt, but with robes draped over the top, shabby and open).

'Malfoy,' Weasley greets stiffly.

Draco nods at him.

'I knew floo could be a bad idea,' Granger says, sounding apologetic. 'Didn't Harry get lost his first time using it too?'

Weasley chuckles. 'Yeah, you'd think he'd remember.'

At this, Potter comes back into the room, carrying five bottles of butterbeer. He hands them around, seeming embarrassed. 'Well, everyone is home safe now. No one ended up hiding in a cupboard in Knockturn Alley.'

Draco raises an eyebrow. 'You what?'

'Nothing,' Potter says hastily. 'So, Dudley, how are you?'

'Good.' Dudley drains a significant portion of the butterbeer in one swallow and then holds the bottle up to look at, seeming impressed. 'Gonna be on telly next week.'

Potter's eyebrows shoot up, and Granger lets out an interested 'Ooh!'

Draco looks around blankly, briefly catching Weasley's eye. Weasley shrugs, also oblivious.

'For boxing?' Potter asks. His cousin nods.

'Yeah. Pretty sick, huh?'

Potter grins. 'Really sick, Big D. Well, I saved the world last year.'

Dudley makes a dismissive sound. 'Yeah right. Were you on telly?'

'I was in the papers.'

'No one reads newspapers, freak.'

'Excuse me,' Draco interjects. 'What is "telly"?'

Glancing at Granger for help, Potter fumbles for an explanation. 'Er, it's like the paper, except people talk on it--'

'Like the wireless?' Weasley asks.

'Yeah, but there's pictures too. And... sometimes it shows the news, and sometimes it shows sports, and sometimes it shows stories with actors and stuff.'

'I see,' Draco says skeptically. Dudley is looking at him like he's a complete idiot, which he finds quite offensive, coming from a muggle.

'And boxing is the one where they punch each other?' Weasley asks. 'In the face?'

Granger looks slightly disapproving. 'Yes.'

'It's a noble sport,' says Dudley. 'Dad says so.'

Draco leans forward, looking at Potter. 'Let me get this straight,' he asks slowly. 'There is a muggle sport where people punch each other in the face, and it is broadcast as entertainment?'

'Yeah,' Potter replies.

'Where can I watch this?'

'On telly,' Dudley says slowly and thickly, as though he's talking to a child.

Potter snickers, and says something about Dudley not being able to talk to people like they're stupid, at which the muggle goes pink in the cheeks. It's odd, Draco thinks, to watch Potter (and watch him he does, very carefully) in this context. He's trying a bit too hard to be cheerful and although he makes jibes at his cousin, he also seems to be being careful that the blows land softly.

What had he said? He is trying to see if there's anything to salvage between him and Dudley. Dudley clearly isn't the brightest fairy on the Christmas tree. A lot of what Potter says goes right over his head like an overshot quaffle - and it certainly doesn't help when Weasley joins in, talking about distinctly magical things and laughing at the dumbfounded expression on Dudley's face. Granger is being more cautious, picking her words carefully. Draco tries to stay mostly quiet and out of the way. He sips his butterbeer quickly.

It doesn't take long before Dudley is snickering his way through a story about going to the pool with Potter when they were kids and holding his head under the water until Potter nearly drowned. 'He couldn't swim,' Dudley says. Granger and Weasley both look stricken, but Potter has a slight smirk playing around the corner of his mouth. 'Cuz mum and dad wouldn't give him lessons, yeah? And I was holding him under and he kept trying to thrash up and dad was cheering me on, isn't that right, Harry?'

'That's right, Diddykins,' Potter agrees placidly.

Dudley clearly thinks the story is amusing. Draco thinks he's reading his audience terribly. Granted, he himself would tell a similar one with relish, given the opportunity, but come on. You need at least one person in your court for the joke to land.

'And I grabbed one of those foam noodles, remember Harry?'

'Yep.'

'And I wrapped it around your neck and pushed you out into the deep end...'

'Yep.'

'And, well. And it was funny.' He looks around at Draco, Granger and Weasley. 'He nearly drowned.'

There's silence for a moment. That amused glint is still playing in Potter's eyes. 'You remember what happened next?'

Dudley screws his face up for a moment, clearly thinking. 'I think mum bought me an ice cream.'

'Before that.'

It's apparent that the memory has only just resurfaced for Dudley. Possibly he blocked it out. 'You stole my swimmers!' he shouts accusingly at Potter. 'And that fucking noodle!'

Weasley roars with laughter. 'You stole his noodle? Why do you even have noodles in the pool?'

'It's not a _noodle_ noodle,' Granger explains, interrupting. 'It's a foam floatation device. Muggle kids use them to learn to swim, instead of floating spells. They're about this long.' She spreads her arms out. 'And brightly coloured.'

A moment later, Draco is glad that she explained, because the mental image that Potter spins is really worth it. 'If I recall correctly, Dudders, I didn't _steal_ your swimmers. I wouldn't touch those with a ten foot pole. I think they vanished, actually. Like magic.' Dudley has gone bright red, almost purple, now. 'And the noodle, well. I can't explain why it chased you up and down the pool like that. That was just weird.'

'Dad didn't let you out of your cupboard for a week!' Dudley shoots back.

Potter's smile falters. 'No, he didn't,' he says. Draco glances between them, wondering if 'cupboard' also has another meaning to muggles that he doesn't know about, because that sounded like-

'I'll get some more butterbeers!' Potter says quickly, with enforced cheer. 'Ron, why don't you explain quidditch to Dudley?'

He disappears quickly out of the room again and Draco drains the last mouthful of his butterbeer and stands up. 'I'll go,' he says quickly.

'Yeah,' Weasley says, in a voice that sounds like he's biting back adding on _good_.

'Thanks, Malfoy,' Granger adds, not looking at him.

Draco catches Dudley's eye and nods to him. Dudley jerks his heavy chin in what might be a friendly way.

'Don't get a butterbeer for me,' Draco tells Potter, ducking his head into the kitchen. 'I'm off.'

Potter stands up quickly, banging his head on the freezer door. He blinks a few times and patches of red appear on his cheeks. 'Oh-' he starts. 'I, er. See you, then.'

Draco smirks. 'Your cousin is a gem.'

'Isn't he, though?' Setting down the bottles he's holding, Potter leans against the kitchen counter. 'But you know, sometimes people are, well, wankers. And then they grow up a bit. And maybe its worth, er, starting fresh.'

'If you say so,' Draco replies.

'Do you think?'

'Think what?'

'That it's worth trying?'

Draco raises his eyebrows, looking at Potter searchingly. 'Yeah,' he says after a while. 'Maybe.'

Smiling, Potter steps forward. He takes the empty bottle of butterbeer that is hanging loosely from Draco's fingers. 'I'll come by with that bottle of wine some time soon,' he promises.

What should be only a couple of minutes walk back down the street takes Draco a good ten. He stops in the gap between two buildings, staring at the stone wall for a long moment, listening to something strum through his veins so that it rumbles in his ears distractingly. He knows Pansy will tease him to death if she ever finds out that his crush on Potter is back, stronger than ever.

Behind him, he can hear laughter carrying on the breeze from the living room he just left. The snorting guffaws are clearly coming from Dudley, and the rich, unfathomably joyous sound Draco recognises as Potter's laugh. How he can still sound like that, after everything, Draco has no idea.

Maybe it is worth trying, after all.

*

 

September fades into October like the rustle between the pages of a book, which Draco feels is all he ever sees these days.

'You need to get out,' Pansy tells him, leaning against the door to his bedroom. She makes a disgusted sound and comes inside, picking up the stack of crumb covered plates on his desk, almost hidden by a teetering pile of textbooks. 'Fuck you Draco, you're eighteen, you don't need a house elf to clean up after you all the time.'

'No, you'll do it,' Draco mutters, not looking up from the arithmancy problem he's working on. He has a pounding headache. Pansy may have a point: he's only left the house to go into Hogwarts for classes this week. He doesn't _like_ going out at the moment. He doesn't like looking Madam Rosmerta in the eye at the Three Broomsticks and feeling the surge of bitter guilt he gets every time he does. He doesn't like stepping out into the streets now that they are getting colder and feel more like unhappy winter months. He doesn't like wasting time on anything that doesn't feel like it has an end goal. NEWTs, he tells himself. That's what is important.

Everything else is... undeserved.

Doesn't help that he's taken to bumping into Potter every time he steps out the front door, and Potter has taken to _smiling_ at him. Rude.

'One night out with me and Blaise won't stop you getting all Outstandings, you know,' Pansy admonishes.

Draco leans back in his chair, stretching his arms up over his head. His fingers crack as he bends them, straining up towards the ceiling. His whole body feels stiff from being curled over his parchment, his hand aching from gripping a quill. 'There's not an examiner alive who'll give Outstandings to an ex-Death Eater,' he replies in a strained voice. He sighs as he slumps again. 'Unless I give them no choice.'

'So, what? You're just going to work until nine and then listen to that hitwizard drama on the wireless with Goyle? Again?'

'Probably.'

'I don't know how you stand it. Every episode is the same. What's-his-name shows up in an unreasonably small village, half the wizards in town die, and it turns out to be the house elf all along.'

'It was only the house elf once. And she was coerced. The Minister's son and daughter were going at it and ordered her to silence anyone who found out about their torrid incestuous affair.'

'Ugh, sad.' Pansy puts the dirty plates down again and drapes herself over Draco's shoulders, burying her face in his hair and rubbing her hand over his collarbones soothingly. ' _Draco_ ,' she whines, dragging his name out on her tongue. 'Come out and get drunk.'

'I can stay in and get drunk,' he argues.

'You know what's not sexy?'

He snorts. Pansy's hand travels a little further inside his robes and he swats it away. 'What?'

'You and Goyle drinking alone and listening to the wireless like old witches.'

'Well, maybe we're not trying to be sexy.'

'That's a waste,' she says, flopping all her weight on him now. 'Please? For me?'

'When was it ever for anyone else?' Draco asks, but his resolve is crumbling. Maybe he does listen to the wireless too much. 'Is Goyle going to come?'

'I'm sure he will if you do,' Pansy replies. She hauls herself off him, looking pleased with herself. 'I'm going to get tarted up, I expect you to do the same.'

'Fine, fine.'

'And bring your plates downstairs.'

'Okay.'

'Stop eating up here, you animal.' She pauses at the door, turning on the spot to look coyly over her shoulder and wink at him. 'I love fun-Draco, you know.'

He presses his lips together to try to keep from smiling. Ah, she's right. Much longer holed up in here and he'll probably transfigure into a mothball. And just as long as Potter and his friends haven't had the same idea this evening as Pansy, it might even be a good time.

*

Turns out they have, more or less.

Less, because unlike Pansy, none of the Gryffindor lot are wearing sugarplum pink camisoles which are completely see through over lacy black bras, or dragonscale patterned robes which seem to mostly be made of string. And he is still not sure how Pansy is planning on walking around once she's had a few drinks in those platforms. No, Potter, Granger and Weasley are all wearing sensible shoes. They have that going for them, at least.

Draco freezes when he sees them sitting at a table by the wall. Judging by the small collection of empty glasses in front of them, they've had a couple of rounds already. There are a couple of other people with them - Lovegood, the Weasley girl, Longbottom. Of the six of them, Longbottom is clearly either the fastest drinker or the lightest of weights, because he is on his feet behind Ginny Weasley (who is clapping him on and laughing) and doing an awkward little dance to the music that is playing in the bar. The rest of them are laughing, Lovegood loudest of all, her head thrown back so that the strange, feathery headpiece she has clipped into her hair nearly falls off.

Potter sees them first and Draco freezes. Potter looks almost subdued compared to the rest of them, although his lips are pulled into an amused, happy smile. Draco gets the impression he has one eye constantly on the door, because he's watching them the moment they come into the bar, an unreadable expression on his face.

Pansy and Blaise ignore the Gryffindors and march right up to the bar. 'Find us a table, Draco,' she says to him. 'I'll get you something strong.'

Goyle is a solid presence at Draco's back, comforting in his security. A couple more of the Gryffindors have noticed them now. Ginny Weasley has paused in clapping Longbottom on with his dance, which makes Longbottom himself look around to see why she stopped.

Lovegood follows his gaze as well, and her eyes go wide. Wider than usual, even. 'Oh, hello!' she calls over the music and chattering patrons. 'Harry, are they joining us? You didn't say we were waiting on people.'

Weasley says something to her that Draco doesn't catch, and so does Potter, but his eyes are still on Draco. He beckons him over.

Most of the tables in the Three Broomsticks are small and round, seating no more than a handful of people. But there are two long, hardwood tables for large groups, and the group of Gryffindors (plus Lovegood) are sitting on one of these, at the end. The rest of the seats are empty. None of the small tables are, except along the bar. The other long table is full. There is a large group of witches in pink robes, one wearing a tiara and drinking from a goblet shaped like a large erection with ejaculates champagne directly into her mouth. Draco supposes she's getting married tomorrow.

'You're welcome to the rest of our table,' Potter says. 'You and, er, your friends. We don't need it all.'

It is not an invitation to drink with them. It is an invitation to drink around them. Adjacent, but separate.

It is much more preferable.

With that said, Draco wishes he had not taken Pansy's insistence that he tart up quite as much to heart. Not that he's as bad as her, by any means, but he shed his robes for crisp, tight slacks and a pressed white shirt, he knows he looks nice, and right now that is making him feel exposed rather than good.

'Thank you,' he says to Potter. With a grunt, Goyle sits down on one of the stools, so Draco follows him, sliding into the chair beside him. They are a few seats down from Potter's group, but close enough to hear every word of conversation - especially while he and Goyle sit in silence, waiting for Pansy and Blaise to return with drinks.

'You're delusional, Ron,' Weasley's sister is saying fiercely. Longbottom is no longer dancing - his cheeks are flaming and he's burying himself back in his drink. 'If you think the Canons can go up against the Harpies without completely embarrassing themselves--'

'I was talking about a one-on-one between Gudgeon and Pattersby, actually.'

Ginny laughs loudly, throwing her head back. 'You think Minnie could lose to _Gudgeon_?'

'Look, Gudgeon's got a bad rep for that bumblebee incident, but if you actually look at his record-' Potter puts his hand on Weasley's arm, giving him a pointed look to tell him he's fighting a losing battle. Instead of continuing, Weasley just lifts his pint to his mouth and mutters something into the drink about family disloyalty.

'I think Gudgeon is an excellent player,' Lovegood says dreamily. 'I've never actually seen him, but my dad once ran an article about archaic quidditch rules, and in some accounts it's said that enchanted insects were the first known snitches. Bees were used because it was easy to tell who caught it first, since the player would usually get their hand stung in the process.' She pauses to sip her drink. 'It's nice to know some players still engage with the sport's history. Besides, much more interesting than that stuff with the balls.'

Draco notices that Weasley doesn't look exactly pleased with Lovegood's support for this stance.

Ginny smirks. 'Oh, well that settles it then.'

Just as Granger opens her mouth to interject something in the conversation, Draco hears Pansy's voice calling out loudly across the bar, and he swivels around to face her.

'Draco, what is this?!' she shouts at him. She already has a drink in her hand, and Blaise is following behind, holding a tray with three more. For a moment Draco thinks she's angry, but then he sees that her face is split into a wide grin. 'Are you willingly socialising?'

'Oh, no, he's sitting in very uncomfortable silence,' Lovegood tells Pansy. 'Everyone is trying to ignore that they are here, but it's making us quite self conscious.'

Pansy rolls her eyes, grabbing a tall, deep glass full of swirling silver and amber liquid off the tray. Blaise swears as the whole thing teeters and hastens to rebalance it. Pansy shoves the drink in Draco's hands. 'Well, that is what alcohol is for.'

Draco glances at Goyle. 'It's not uncomfortable,' he mutters. Goyle shakes his head. Taking a sip of the drink, Draco feels a burn scald down his throat and settle in his chest. He gasps, and he can feel the air on his tongue, almost like ice. 'What in Merlin's name is this?' he asks, his voice raspy. The drink isn't unpleasant - it actually has an almost sweet aftertaste, something tangy and syrupy. But the initial hit is enough that Draco knows there are probably at least four standard drinks in this glass alone.

'I'm not sure,' Pansy said. 'I asked them to make something which could knock the boots off a troll, but wouldn't taste like feet, and that's what they came back with. It doesn't taste like feet, does it?'

Draco is still struggling to get words out of his throat. 'Not at all,' he pants.

After a moment he starts to recover and notices that Granger, Longbottom and Ginny Weasley in particular are watching Pansy and Blaise with eyes-narrowed caution. Blaise is ignoring them, like he does everyone, and settling himself down in the furthest seat with his drink.

Pansy sniffs at them. 'Tell me if I've got something on my face, why don't you?'

Longbottom's eyebrows raise and he opens his mouth as if to say something, but Potter gets there first. He grabs a coaster and an empty pint, setting them in the centre of the table and announces, 'You mention the war, you put a sickle in the cup.'

Longbottom's mouth closes, but he looks unconvinced.

'Look,' Pansy says indicating the two ends of the long table. 'You lot get shitfaced there, we'll get shitfaced here. Seem fair?'

'That's the idea,' Potter says with a half smile.

'Longbottom, you may continue with your dance,' Draco tells him. 'Don't mind us.'

'Shut up,' Longbottom says, going even pinker.

For a while, the situation is sustainable. Draco swivels in his chair so that he's got his back to the other group, facing Goyle and Blaise. Pansy climbs into his lap, even though there are plenty of empty seats. She throws an arm around his shoulder, crosses her legs, and pointedly grabs his free hand and puts it on her bare thigh. They all (Gryffindors, Slytherins and Ravenclaw) drink heavily.

It takes Draco a while to relax, but the mystery drink does its job well. Before he's even half way through the glass he's feeling his whole body going loose and easy, and he's laughing more freely and can hear his own voice getting louder and louder.

'My leg is going to sleep, Pants,' he complains after about half an hour of her draping herself over his body and nearly spilling her drink on him as she bounces obnoxiously to the music on his lap. 'Get the fuck off, you clingy bint.'

'Trouble in paradise?' Weasley asks loudly, and it takes Draco a moment to register that he's talking to him. He turns in his chair, putting a hand on Pansy's waist to support her as he moves.

'What's that, Weasel?'

Granger closes her eyes, smiling in mild exasperation. Weasley has his arm around her. Potter is sitting on their other side, bottle at his lips and a smile caught around the rim of the drink.

'Hermione'd kill me if I called her a bint.'

'And what does that have to do with anything?'

'You always talk to your girlfriends like that?' Weasley asks. Draco's eyes narrow at him for a moment. He can't tell whether he's trying to start something, or is just a little pissed and consequently outspoken.

Before he can respond, Draco hears Goyle snort and say, 'Pansy's not Draco's girlfriend.'

Draco notices Potter's smile disappear from his face, to be replaced by something blank and expressionless. Weasley and Granger both look surprised, and Longbottom looks positively baffled.

'Yeah she is,' Longbottom says. 'Haven't you two been together since fourth year or something?'

Both Pansy and Draco laugh. Pansy throws her head back, sending black hair flying into his face.

'Ha!' she cackles. 'No. I wish. If I recall correctly, Draco was pretty hung up on someone else in fourth year. And fifth. And maybe sixth?'

Draco feels his cheeks flush and it's got nothing to do with the warming effects of booze. He tries to cover Pansy's mouth with his hand. 'Be quiet, _be quiet_!'

'Oooh,' Ginny Weasley says, leaning forward on her elbows. 'Go on, Parkinson.'

Weasley pulls a face. 'Do we really want to talk about who Malfoy fancies? I'm not sure I want to know. I might be sick.'

Granger waves him quiet, and Pansy raises her voice even louder. Draco can feel the tension in her body, excitement coiling in her at sharing gossip. He keeps trying to quieten her, and even considers going for his wand to silence her properly. But before he can she pushes his hand away from her mouth (splashing more sugary cocktail on him in the process), and half-shouts: 'In fact, isn't that person sitting _at this very table_ , Draco?'

Longbottom glances around the girls. 'Luna...?' he guesses, hesitantly.

'MY GIRLFRIEND?' Weasley guesses hotly, slamming his hand on the table.

'Me?' suggests Ginny, almost cockily. There is a smirk on her lips, and she's raising an eyebrow.

'I don't think Malfoy would fancy me,' Lovegood says dreamily. 'He's very hung up on appearances and seems to think I'm a little odd.'

Pansy grins and pokes Draco's shoulder. 'Why don't you tell them?'

'I've told _you_ a million times,' he argues, deliberately not looking at anyone. He knows he's bright red now. 'It wasn't-- I just thought he was good looking, I didn't fancy him. There's a difference between finding someone attractive, and wanting to, uh...' he trails of. Hesitantly, he steals a quick glance in Blaise's direction, finding him looking even more uncomfortable them him and staring off into the other side of the bar pointedly.

There is silence for a moment, and then Weasley coughs. 'Uh, Malfoy, I didn't realise you were...'

'Well, it's not a secret,' Malfoy snaps at him, feeling suddenly irritated. He mentally clocks another notch on the tally of times Pansy has pushed him out of the closet.

'So, I suppose we are talking about Blaise then?' Granger asks curiously.

'Maybe we shouldn't be talking about this at all,' Potter suggests quietly. Draco squints at him, still unable to read his expression. 'Blaise doesn't look happy.'

Ginny laughs. 'He never looks happy.'

Stealing another glance at Blaise, Draco notices that his shoulders are set in a stiff, straight line and he's scowling deeply. 'And surprisingly,' Blaise says quietly. 'Pansy leaves out the most important part of this story.'

Pansy sits up straighter, actually squealing. 'Oh Merlin, I forgot that!'

'Please, no,' Draco begs. He had been worried this conversation would lead here from the start. 'Please, don't, Pansy, don't.'

'Come on, let's talk about something else,' Potter says loudly, but Pansy talks over him, louder still. Also, none of the other Gryffindors look like they want to drop the subject, too amused and curious now.

'So, I was trying to convince Blaise to at least make out with Draco,' she explains. 'One evening. Because he's a terrible kisser, and I thought maybe if he got some practice with someone he actually had the hots for that might help.'

'I always thought he'd be a shit kisser,' Weasley interjects.

'Think about it much, do you?' Draco snaps back.

'Oh, he's bad at everything,' Pansy continues, giggling. 'Not that he's had much to go on. But he's handsome enough to make up for it, don't you think?'

'No,' Longbottom and Weasley say in unison. Lovegood says, 'I think the most important thing is having a sense of humour in bed.'

'But before I could even wear Blaise down, Draco kept going on about his whole thing of not _really_ fancying him.'

'Dragonshit, by the way,' Blaise puts in, as though it is important to make it very, very clear that everyone is secretly in love with him. 'But do you remember what he said in the end, Pansy?'

'Oh yes.' Pansy's pug-like face brightens so that she looks radiant and gleeful. 'Yes I think I do.'

'Verbatim?'

'Please, please, please, please don't,' Draco almost whimpers, and then takes a long, deep, strengthening slug from his nearly empty glass, draining it. It burns enough that he almost doesn't have to hear Pansy quote him.

'Wasn't it,' (she puts on a deeper, nasally voice, imitating Draco), ' _"I'm not even really attracted to Zabini. He's just the only passably good looking boy in this school who isn't in Gryffindor"_?'

There is a collective series of interested-slash-disgusted sounds from the other end of the table.

'Was he talking about one person?' Ginny asks. 'Or just, the whole house?'

'We didn't know for the longest time,' Pansy answers. 'It took several bottles of Ogden's and the threat of veritaserum to ever get the truth out of him.'

'And?'

Draco stands up abruptly, sending Pansy slipping off his lap and almost into a heap on the ground. She catches herself on the edge of the table, laughing. 'Oh, Draco actually will kill me if I share that one,' she snickers. 'He's a pussycat really, but I'm sworn to take that to the grave. Same for Blaise and Goyle, so don't bother asking.'

'I've forgotten who it was,' Goyle says.

Draco smiles at him. 'This is why you're my best friend.' Standing up so suddenly has made him realise just how incredibly tipsy he is, and he figures that at this point he has two options for maintaining his dignity: a) going home and forgetting this night ever happened, or b) getting wasted and forgetting it as it's happening right now.

He goes for the latter. 'I will buy everyone a round of whatever they like,' he announces, steadying himself on Goyle's shoulder. 'If we change the topic of conversation.'

'Oh, thank Merlin,' Weasley says, and tells Draco to get him a pint.

After a few moments, he's looking at them all and blinking. 'Two pints,' he repeats, ticking them off on his fingers. He points at Pansy. 'A pink aniseed thing you can't remember the name of?'

'With an umbrella.'

'Okay... A firewhiskey for Longbottom,' Draco continues. 'Uh, daisyroot shandy for Blaise, a.... a "Wrackspurt Pollen Mead", was it?'

'If it's on the menu,' Lovegood says vaguely.

'It won't be,' interjects Weasley, grinning.

'And, and,' Draco trails off. 'Merlin, can't you all just come up and order yourselves? I can't remember all this.'

With a heavy scrape as the chair pushes back on the stone floor, Potter stands up. 'I'll come help,' he says. 'I've got it.'

As they walk up to the bar, Draco hears Weasley ask, 'Should we even leave any Gryffindor men alone with him?'

Feeling his cheeks flaming again, Draco notices Potter smirking as he catches his eye. 'I think I can handle myself,' he says in an undertone, and then winks.

Draco splutters. 'I- You shouldn't- Pansy, she's-'

'Relax,' Potter says. 'I'm joking. But you're wrong, you know.'

That bloody drink really was incredibly strong. Goddammit Pansy. Draco's mind seems to crawl along, barely keeping up with what's going on around him. He furrows his brows at Potter in confusion. 'I'm... wrong?'

'Hufflepuff has the cutest guys.'

Draco snorts. 'Sure. But sorry, I don't usually trust straight wizards with making these assessments.'

'Me neither,' Potter agrees, and Draco has to stare at him for a very long moment to understand what he's getting at.

'But you're with that, that Ginny Weasley.'

'What, like you're with Parkinson?'

'No. Yes. What?'

Potter laughs, that warm, rich sound again. 'How drunk are you?'

'Too.'

'Two? Like on a scale of one to ten?'

'No. Like, much too much so. How drunk are _you_? Can't even follow a simple conversation, Potter.'

'Four. Maybe four and a half.'

Draco laughs. They are at the bar now, but they're not ordering, just leaning against the hard mahogany and looking at each other. 'But you _were_ with Weasley. It's not like me and Pans.'

Potter nods. 'Yeah. We're not picking up again, though.'

'So you, uh. Fly both ways, then?'

'Yup.'

'Hm.' Draco quickly realises a little too much hope might be showing on his face, so he shuts it down, forcing his expression blank. He turns away to flag a bartender (anyone other than Rosmerta) down. 'What the hell do I care what Quidditch team you play for, Potter?'

'You tell me,' Potter replies, just as a short, stocky wizard comes over to help them with their drinks.

He has never heard of Wrackspurt Pollen Mead.

 

*

Miraculously, they manage to make it all the way through the night (until the Three Broomsticks is finishing up with the last round of drinks and pointedly hinting that they should leave), and no one has to use Potter's Don't-Mention-the-War jar.

At least, not that Draco notices. After another couple of rounds, he's positively legless and the night seems to pass smoothly, even though they keep talking to the group of Gryffindors. No one fights. Pansy torments Blaise by telling incredibly embarrassing stories about him, such as the time two half-veela twenty-one year old girls were angling for a threesome with him, but he obliviously revealed he was only sixteen, going so far as to show them his Hogwarts book list as proof.

It's not something many people outside of Blaise's close friends realise about him - that he is incredibly, incredibly awkward and easily uncomfortable. The Gryffindors don't actually believe Pansy's stories about him until a couple more drinks in, when Blaise traps himself into a twenty minute anecdote about the formation and early history of the wizarding postal service which is hilarious only due to the fact that it never ends and Blaise is very obviously increasingly distraught that he started speaking at all but is committed and can't seem to stop.

By the time they are all leaving the pub, laughing and drunk, Draco notices Ginny Weasley smiling broadly at Blaise and saying, 'I dislike you a lot less now.'

She and Lovegood then link arms and head back towards Hogwarts, Longbottom going with them to use the floo network at the school.

Blaise's eyes follow her for a long, evidently confused moment. Eventually he looks at Draco and says, 'humph.'

Draco is leaning bodily on Goyle for support. His body feels warm all the way through, despite the chill in the night air. The Hogsmeade streets are empty and quiet, lit only by the streetlamps. All windows in the houses are dark, curtains drawn.

Weasley and Granger are standing a few feet away, under a beam supporting the first floor of the Three Broomsticks. They are kissing deeply. Granger has her arms around Weasley's neck and is clearly pretty pissed herself because she's not stopping him from groping her bum in public.

'Yeuch,' Pansy says, looking at the display; but she's grinning.

'Hey, I have to go home with that,' Potter points out.

Before his brain can catch up with his stupid drunk mouth, Draco says, 'No, you don't.'

Potter looks at him in surprise. Draco hastens to clarify. 'I mean, we aren't going to bed yet, are we?'

'I am,' Blaise yawns.

'But if you wanted to give them some, uh, privacy for an hour or so,' Draco stumbles on. 'We could, you know. Nightcap.'

'Nightcap,' Potter repeats. There's a slow smile spreading across his face.

'Maybe not more booze. Maybe Goyle can make some hot chocolate.'

Goyle shrugs a large shoulder agreeably, nearly sending Draco stumbling.

'I like this idea,' Pansy adds. 'Hot chocolate and biccies. And none for Blaise.'

Blaise yawns again, covering his mouth and blinking heavily. 'Mm?'

Draco tries to school his face into not looking like he cares what Potter says. 'So?'

Potter grins, light and easy. 'Sounds good by me.' He turns to Weasley and Granger and shouts at them that he will be home later. Weasley just shoots him a thumbs up.

The whole walk back to their little house, Pansy teases Draco relentlessly and just subtly enough that Potter doesn't seem to notice.

*

The following morning Draco barely makes it downstairs to the kettle. His head is pounding and his stomach is churning so much that he feels like he's got a nest of flobberworms wriggling inside him. On the creaky sixth step from the bottom, Draco has to lie down on the cool wood and close his eyes for a moment before he can get up again and make it all the way down to the kitchen.

On the small table in the kitchen is an empty plate covered in crumbs, and four mugs with the dregs of sticky sweet hot chocolate left at the bottom. The thought of rich, sweet food makes Draco want to throw up, so he sits down again on the stone floor, looking wistfully at the kettle on the top of the stove. His hand is shaking around his wand. He doesn't trust himself to put the water on to boil.

Outside, the sun is barely risen. It is grey and dreary, weakly nudging its way through thick, heavy clouds. Draco kind of wants to sit outside in the cold, maybe lie on the footpath. His whole body feels hot with hangover nausea.

He's just about to try a spell to get some coffee going, when he hears the soft sound of socked feet padding into the room behind him. He glances over his shoulder.

Potter is standing there in just his pants and his oversized jumper, bright orange knitted socks on his feet and his hair sticking up even more than usual. He's not got his glasses on. He's squinting at Draco with tired eyes. His knees, which are what Draco is level with from his spot on the ground, are knobbly and fuzzy with dark hair.

'Morning,' Draco says, his voice coming out raspy.

Potter squints some more and runs a hand through his hair. 'I... slept on your couch?'

Despite the throbbing behind Draco's eyes, he smiles. 'You started nodding off at the table during the cocoa hour. Goyle helped you to the sofa.'

'Who took off my jeans?'

'That would be Pansy.'

Draco is very, very, very grateful to Goyle and Pansy for putting Potter to bed in the living room. If they hadn't been there to stop him, Draco would have undoubtedly done something incredibly stupid like offering up his own bed, with himself still in it.

Potter blinks and finally seems to register that Draco is on the floor. 'Are you okay?'

Draco shakes his head. 'I am very hungover.'

With a heavy groan, Potter eases himself down onto the floor as well and sighs. 'Oh, this is better.' He looks up at the kettle on the stove, following Draco's line of sight. 'Coffee?'

'If I can work a boiling charm.'

Potter looks around. 'My wand must be wherever Parkinson put my jeans.' He glances at Draco. 'Uh, if I can borrow yours I can do the spell.'

Without hesitation, Draco hands over his wand. It hardly feels like his own anyway, so why not? After a moment, Potter mutters an incantation and the kettle starts boiling on the stove. A few more charms and he's pouring out thick, dark coffee into mugs and carefully hovering them down onto the floor. He passes the wand back to Draco.

'Thanks.'

'Do you want a fry up?' Potter asks. 'When I feel alive I'll go home and make one for Ron and Hermione. You're welcome to join.'

Draco thinks of the crisp cool air outside, of the sound and smell of sizzling bacon, of eggs and tomato and hash browns and grease on his tongue. He thinks of the fact Potter is sitting next to him in his pants. 'Yeah, sure,' he says.

*

Ron and Hermione aren't awake yet. Truth be told, Draco is barely awake. No sane person _should_ be, but he felt too nauseous and thirsty to stay in bed, so instead he is here, in Potter's living room, nursing another cup of coffee and staring off into the distance.

He feels fragile and sick with unfounded worry. He wants to lie down on the floor and go to sleep. He doesn't think he would have nightmares, but he might throw up on himself, so.

Draco's hands shake and his body doesn't feel like his own. He wishes it was just because of the hangover. He glances at Potter, who is also quiet. He's sitting in an armchair with his legs curled up and his arms wrapped around his knees. He's loosely holding his own mug, but not drinking. His eyes are glazed over.

When a toilet flushes a floor above, both of them jump.

Harry breathes out a laugh. 'Shit,' he says. 'Sorry. Sorry. I zoned out there.'

'Me too,' Draco says distantly. He blinks rapidly a few times. Potter is looking at him curiously, head cocked to the side.

'It's surreal, isn't it?' he asks vaguely.

Draco groans, suddenly realising that yes, Potter would definitely be the sort for deep, emotionally honest conversations when hungover. 'What is?'

'Just... carrying on.' Potter taps his fingers on the side of his mug. 'Sometimes I feel like I should be angry. I dunno. At the world, for how fucked up everything has been. At people who let it happen. At you.'

Draco stares into his coffee, stomach thudding unhappily somewhere down near his toes. His immediate urge is to lash out at Potter before he can continue, to say something to head him off and cut deep, and then leave with his head held high. He doesn't though. He can't think of anything to say.

'I'm just, not, though,' Potter continues. 'Sometimes I'm worried I don't have it in me anymore. That I'm just too blank to be pissed off.'

'Hmm,' Draco says, and half an hour later eats eggs and bacon at the kitchen table with Potter, Granger and Weasley.

*

Draco is so used to the settled quiet of living in Hogsmeade that when November rolls around and it is flooded with teenagers from Hogwarts for the first time since he moved here, he finds it overwhelming. The usually sparsely populated streets are swarming with people. The usually quiet air is humming with voices, breaking with laughter. His window faces the street, and he can see the mass of people and their voices carry up to him, loud and clear.

He goes into Goyle's room with a stack of books and studies on his bed instead of staying where he can hear the crowds.

It is hard to tell, but Goyle seems more reticent than usual. They don't talk about Crabbe very much, partially because Draco does not want to hear Goyle defend him even after everything, which he knows he will. And partially because they were _three_ , always three.

And now they are two and it is quiet and lonely, and Draco feels closer to Goyle than he ever has in his life, but there is a big, ugly, Crabbe-shaped hole between them. Some of the happiest times Draco can remember from school were here in Hogsmeade with Crabbe and Goyle.

'Too loud outside?' Goyle asks. He isn't studying or anything. He's just playing with a stack of cards, building a tall, trembling tower.

'Couldn't concentrate,' Draco says, settling himself comfortably against Goyle's pillows. He opens one of his books in his lap, stares blankly at the page for a moment, and then looks up at Goyle. 'Do you need help with anything?'

Goyle glances at him. 'With school?'

Draco rolls his eyes. 'No, with the ladies. Of course with school, you oaf.'

'Herbologys not been going so good.'

'C'mere then.' Draco pats the bed in front of him. 'Grab your book.'

It feels good and right to spend this weekend holed up with Goyle, guiding him through his homework. It is familiar and productive. It takes Draco's mind off the happy throngs outside, and his thoughts which have been lingering, pathetically, with Potter.

*

Christmas falls on Hogsmeade with a flurry of early snow. December is immediately crisp and icy, and the whole place becomes picturesque overnight. Suddenly the creaking walls of the house feel atmospheric as they groan under the weight of snow on the roof. Icicles hang off the door jam.

On cold walks up to Hogwarts, Draco gets a taste of the sense of excited cheer filling the castle as students prepare for the holidays. There is a change in the hallways, a festive buzz to the chatter. As Draco sits in his transfiguration class, he watches groups of students outside in the snow as he works on conjuring a mouse from thin air.

They are playing in snow drifts, bewitching snowballs to chase each other. The trees of the Forbidden Forest are glittering in ice, and they look almost like a great mass of Christmas trees.

It is only a few days into December when Pansy pulls him into the living room. He was going to go up to his bedroom to study, but she will not let him. She holds fast, drags him back down the stairs, and pushes him towards the bare tree she and Goyle have set up next to the sofa. It is so tall it scrapes the ceiling. Even Blaise is looking at it with subtle appraisal from his spot in the furthest armchair. His nose is buried in a book, but he is smiling.

'I made mince tarts,' Pansy says keenly, holding up a tray of misshapen lumps of pastry and icing sugar. They must be fresh from the oven, because steam is curling merrily off of them. 'We are going to decorate the tree.'

Draco takes a tart, biting in. As awful as they look, they taste fine. Sweet and citrusy, with buttery shortcrust crumbling on his tongue. 'Oh, are we?'

The windows are open despite the cold. The bitter air battles with the roaring fireplace. Pansy, bless her soul, has put the wireless on to a station playing a chorus of witches soppily warbling " _O sing choirs of merfolk, sing in exaltation_."

'I do have better things to get on with than conjuring baubles, you know,' Draco says.

'Yeah, that's that Blaise said too,' Pansy says with an eyeroll. 'Only one of you can get out of it with the same excuse, and he got there first.'

'But _why_?' He shoots a glance at Blaise. 'And he isn't even doing anything!'

'And yet,' hums Blaise.

Pansy pinches Draco's arm. 'Because it's Christmas, and we are family, and it is time for family bonding.'

'We're not family,' Draco snorts. 'We all have families. We'll be seeing them in a few weeks. And frankly, I'll be glad to escape you lot.'

It is a blatant lie and they all know it, but instead of arguing Pansy just smiles and says, 'All the more reason for doing this now.'

Licking crumbs off his fingers, Draco crumbles. Pulling out his wand, he charms a little red and gold bauble into life. It shimmers from the inside, flickering and warm like the fireplace. He passes it to Goyle. 'Are you decorating?'

Goyle grunts in affirmation. He turns around to hang the ornament.

Pansy oohs. 'That's pretty, Draco.'

'Of course it's pretty.' With another flourish of his wand, Draco conjures another one and catches it out of the air, tossing it to Goyle. 'What are you in charge of? Tinsel?'

'Well, sure.' Pansy twirls on the spot, almost like a ballerina, and Blaise snickers from his chair. As she raises her wand over her head, a long shimmering snake of tinsel begins to fly out in a horrible shade of puce. They start to drape themselves over the tree in neat coils while Goyle meticulously places ornaments on the tree one by one, Draco conjuring them from the air.

It takes far too long. Pansy decides fifteen minutes in that she doesn't like how the tinsel is hanging, and makes Goyle remove everything so that she can rearrange.

Draco is just working a tricky little charm on the ends of the branches to make them glow in alternating colours of gold and silver when he catches sight of Potter and Granger wandering past their window, arm in arm. They are both wrapped up against the cold in thick scarves and wooly hats, and carrying several bags of groceries.

For some unknown reason, Draco feels extremely embarrassed at being caught decorating a tree with his housemates. Perhaps because he was just starting to get into it and he has a mince pie held between his teeth as he taps his wand on the tree, and a freshly procured glass of sherry in his other hand which Pansy has been pouring out.

Potter tugs at Granger's arm and comes over to the window, leaning against the warped wood of the sill.

'Seasons greetings,' he says, laughter in his voice. For some reason, Granger rolls her eyes.

Draco hurries to swallow his mince pie all at once and nearly chokes. He quickly washes it down with sherry and chokes on that too.

'Mince pie, Potter?' Pansy offers sweetly, carrying her plate over to the window. While Draco tries to pull himself together. 'They're ugly, but not-so-bad on the inside.'

'Title of your biography,' Blaise murmurs, still hiding behind his book. Granger snorts and then tries to hide it as a cough. Pansy looks at her shrewdly.

'You too,' she says, her voice taking on an even more sickeningly sweet edge as she offers the tarts to Granger.

Draco finally stops choking and manages to wander over to the window. He ambles across the room slowly, trying to seem composed even as his throat remains rough. Leaning on the sill as well, he bumps elbows with Potter and swirls his sherry in its glass.

Granger is picking up a mince pie and taking a small, slightly suspicious nibble.

'This seems cozy,' Potter comments to Draco, gesturing into the house.

'Well,' Draco says hesitantly, still embarrassed by the twee-ness off the evening. 'Family, you know.' Both Pansy and Potter beam at him. He clears his throat. 'Sherry? Both of you?'

Potter lifts up one of his grocery bags. 'We've got to get this home.'

'Of course.'

'Thank you for the pie,' Granger says to Pansy politely.

They both step away and turn their backs on Draco and Pansy. Draco drops his head down onto this forearms in exasperation at himself, and Pansy sniggers and pats him on the shoulder consolingly. 'It's okay darling,' she says. 'You were very char-'

She doesn't finish, as Potter turns around, a few paces down the street and calls back. 'Will we see you at the Hog’s Head on Friday?'

Pansy glances at Blaise, Draco at Goyle. Both of them shrug.

'What's Friday?'

'Christmas party,' Granger says. 'Ah, Hogwarts people will be there, mostly.'

'Ah,' Blaise echoes quietly.

Draco hesitates. 'Should we...?' He asks. He directs his question mostly to Potter. For some reason it feels like he gets the say, either way.

'Free country,' murmurs Pansy, but Potter does just shrug and push hair out of his eyes.

'Come,' he says, mostly to Draco. 'Tis the season, after all.'

This time they walk away properly, disappearing down the street. Draco whines in the back of his throat and buries his face behind the neck of his jumper. He can just see Blaise smirking over the top of his book.

'You know what?' Pansy muses. 'I think you might actually have a shot, Draco.'

Draco just whines louder.

'What's going on?' Goyle asks. 'Why is Draco hiding in his shirt?'

'Because he has a crush,' Pansy explains.

Goyle blinks. 'Huh?'

Draco shuffles over to him. 'This is why you're my best friend,' he mutters as Pansy laughs. He pulls out his wand again and conjures a little gold angel. Handing it to Goyle, he says, 'Put this on the top of the tree.'

Once it is up there, they step back to admire their work. The lights of the tree seem to flicker in time with the fire, catching on the glass ornaments and sending glittering shards of light dancing merrily around the room in green, silver, red and gold.

'It's nice,' Blaise says.

Goyle splutters. 'I just remembered who Draco likes!'

Draco flees upstairs.

*

They cannot actually go to the Christmas party. Blaise flat out refuses, and so does Pansy. When even Goyle looks hesitant and reluctant to follow Draco in getting dressed on Friday evening, something clicks over in Draco’s brain and he realises what a terrible idea it is. 

What a dumb notion, he thinks, tearing off his robes and throwing them on the bed. How could he even consider it? That he would be allowed to walk into a room full of Hogwarts people and leave in one piece. Potter and his buddies might be being gracious enough, for whatever reasons they have. But they are in a minority. 

He goes downstairs to the kitchen, wearing his pajamas, because there is nothing that says _I am committed to staying inside this evening_ like changing into your pajamas before 7pm. Pansy is sitting at the rickety little table with a copy of Witch Weekly. She glances up at him. 

‘Seen sense, have you?’ 

Draco ignores her, opening the cupboard. Now he has to think about dinner. They have plenty of _things_ in the house, but Draco is still unaccustomed to cooking for himself, so he is mostly eyeing off a pot noodle. 

‘I do think you should have gone,’ Pansy says, and Draco slams the cupboard shut. 

‘You refused to come all week!’ 

‘Yeah, well, I can’t take a step near there, can I? But Potter wants you there, and that would look good for us.’ 

Draco hesitates. If he were purely Slytherin ambition and nothing else, he would probably take the sense in her words and go back upstairs to change out of his pajamas again. But he’s part ambition and part embarrassing crush, and his embarrassing crush couldn’t handle the transparency of showing up to a party purely to shmooze on Potter’s coattails. Tacky, that’s what that is. Pansy wears tacky well enough, but _he_ won’t stoop to it. 

He sniffs and takes the pot noodle from the pantry. He points his wand at it to cook it instantly and says to Pansy, ‘I’ll be upstairs with Goyle.’ 

‘Eating instant noodles in your pajamas.’ 

‘And listening to the wireless, yes.’ 

She sighs. ‘Hang on, I’ll join you,’ she says resignedly. Before long they are sitting on Goyle’s bed with the hitwizard mystery show turned up to full volume and a whole stack of empty noodle tubs, the product of continuous summoning charms. At one point they hear Blaise swear as he comes up to the landing, and a moment later he sticks his head through the door and says, ‘Is there a reason this chicken pot noodle just walloped me in the back of the head?’ 

Pansy holds her hand out. ‘Give it.’ 

Blaise throws it to her. Then he surveys the room for a moment, cocks his head to listen to the radio and says, ‘I haven’t heard this one,’ and joins them. 

*

Draco arrives at Malfoy Manor by floo on Christmas morning. He has done it a hundred times before. However, today he manages to inhale a lungful of dust from the fireplace and ends up half stumbling out into the drawing room, coughing and struggling to take in breath. His coughs echo through the high-ceilinged room, taking on an almost eerie sound.

But he hears his mother cry out, 'Draco!' and she sounds happy. Her hand is on his shoulder and he opens his eyes, rubbing soot out of them, and smiles weakly at her.

'Merry Christmas, mother,' he gets out, voice hoarse.

Although the light coming in through the high windows is grey and cold, the drawing room looks brighter and cleaner than it did the last time he was here. The glass has been polished so that light from both the dull sun outside and the chandelier overhead glitters and sparkles on the silver detailing around the walls. The ornate rug which Draco grew up with in here has been removed, for which he is glad. It had looked irreparably dust-worn and tattered a few months ago. Nagini had shed her skin in here several times, and the uncanny, pale imprints of her huge form had been left to wither and break apart on the rug. It had startled Draco almost every time he came downstairs, seeing the ghostly illusions of the snake twisted shapelessly on the floor.

Now the floor is bare and polished, gleaming hardwood which glows gold in the light.

Rubbing his chest, he turns to hug his mother and they stand still, embracing, for a long, long moment. She is wearing a soft perfume which smells slightly of vanilla and jasmine. He breathes her in and feels her hair tickle his cheek, and he can feel her fingers gripping at the coat on his back, holding him close.

'It's good to see you, darling,' she says to him when they break apart. 'Come have a drink.'

'Where’s father?' Draco asks, looking around the room nervously. When he moved to Hogsmeade for school, his father had not been in a good place. He had encouraged Draco to go, with the usual refrain that they needed to restore the Malfoy name, but Draco felt guilty leaving him and mother alone in such a large manor, after everything.

'In the sitting room,' mother says.

'Is he...?'

She smiles at him. 'He's okay,' she hums. 'We're managing. We always do.'

They wander down to the sitting room, Draco's heart thudding in his chest with how much he has missed his home. Not missed the house - Voldemort's presence ruined it, in so many ways. But missed his home looking like _this_ , clean and bright and comfortable. He steps into the sitting room cautiously, but his father stands up and shakes his hand before hugging him - not for as long as mother, but longer than usual - and wishing him happy Christmas. Something relaxes inside Draco as he sees his father's face. It is still lined, and he does not smile. But there is some life in his eyes and his mouth is not turned in a perpetual grimace. 

'The house looks lovely,' Draco says.

'New house elf,' says his father. 'Much better than the old one. Have one of her mince pies.'

Christmas is quiet and peaceful. No one joins them. In the past, the day has been known to blow into a huge, formal affair with various uncles and aunts and third cousins by marriage and ritual and performance from dawn until midnight. But this is better. Draco and his mother and father sitting beside the fire, sipping champagne slowly and eating Plonky the house elf’s wide array of delicious Christmas fair.

Mother asks Draco if he has been studying hard, and Draco says truthfully, yes.

Father asks if he has been socialising, and Draco hesitates.

'To a degree,' he answers finally. Father nods.

'This is the time, Draco,' he says, 'to keep your head down and make a good impression. Show your face, but do not intrude. Be civil and gracious and give the name Malfoy the dignity it deserves.'

'And what about classes?' says mother.

Draco talks about school throughout the day. What he is working on; how Pansy and Goyle have been doing; the teachers; his schedule. Because he is a sad sack and he has had four glasses of bubbly by dinner, he ends up saying, 'I was talking to Potter on the way home from potions the other week, about everlasting polyjuice-'

Mother puts down her knife and fork carefully and father chokes on his wine.

'How is Potter?' Mother asks delicately. 'I heard he was living in the village too.'

'A couple of doors down, actually.'

'You didn't mention you were, ah, associating with him,' says Father.

Draco takes a bite of his roast and chews it, trying not to flush. 'Hardly at all, really,' he says. 'His cousin floo'd into our living room by mistake at the beginning of term and we've joined him and his friends for drinks a couple of times, but that is all.'

Father looks impressed, which is what Draco did not want. 'Good work,' he says. 'Very good work.'

Mother looks at him shrewdly. Unlike Father, she knows about Draco's preferences and has a keen enough eye to tell when he is embarrassed by something and deduce why. 'Do be careful,' she says lightly.

'Always am,' Draco replies.

*

After Christmas, Draco stays at the manor for three nights before returning home. Pansy and Goyle are still with their families, so it is just him and Blaise in the house. Blaise visited his mother for Christmas dinner itself, but left early and has clearly been enjoying having the house to himself because he seems somewhat irate about Draco coming home.

The house is spotless, so it is clear he has been cleaning, and the only sign of life is a collection of empty bottles of pinot noir on the coffee table in the living room and a stack of finished books next to them. When Draco walks through the door, Blaise quickly throws a copy of the Prophet over the books, trying to look casual, but later Draco peeks underneath to see what he has been reading. The books are muggle and unfamiliar to Draco, but the word MISERY is smeared across the cover in what looks like blood, and the image is of a man in a wheelchair with the looming shadow of someone holding an ax falling over him.

'Have a good Christmas?' Draco asks.

'Wonderful, thank you,' says Blaise uncomfortably.

Without Pansy and Goyle around and with no study to do, they end up spending several days more or less in one another's pockets. Blaise is the best cook in the household, so they eat well, and Draco brought home several bottles of expensive wine from the Manor, so they drink well too.

One evening they find themselves sitting by the fire on the smaller of the couches, sharing a bottle. The wireless is on, playing music, and Blaise has one of his books open in front of him, reading it closely. Draco is curled up under a blanket next to him, watching the snow fall outside.

'What is it about?' Draco asks eventually, taking a sip of warm, pleasantly bitter wine.

Blaise gives him a long, searching look, and then says, 'I've just started this one, really. It is about a family moving to a hotel in the middle of nowhere because the father, Jack, gets a job as a caretaker. But the last caretaker in the place went crazy and killed his family.' Blaise pauses, trying to look unaffected, but his voice gives away a touch of excitement. 'It's probably haunted. Jack's son is having visions about his dad killing them.'

'Sounds stupid,' Draco drawls. Then, 'Read me some.'

Blaise glares at him, but looks back down at the book a moment later. ' _She smiled a little in the darkness,_ ' he read. ' _His seed still trickling with slow warmth from between her slightly parted thighs..._ '

Draco swallows. Blaise has always had a lovely voice, slow and deep and clear, and he reads aloud well. Although Draco has managed to put aside his crush on Blaise for a long while now, he can still admit that a tingle of attraction stirs when Blaise speaks in his deep, almost musical voice - particularly if he is reading filth.

Slightly tipsy, Draco lets himself watch Blaise's lips as he reads aloud. It isn't dirty for long, but Blaise's voice can turn anything to smut. Closing his eyes, he lets himself get pulled into the story and they make it through two chapters before Blaise pauses and Draco hears a familiar, muffled, ‘Hullo.’ 

Draco blinks and looks toward the window. 

Potter is standing outside. He is wearing a beanie tugged down over his ears and holding what is clearly yet another bottle of wine, wrapped clumsily in festive paper with a piece of gold twine spun around the neck. Picking up his wand between loose fingers, Draco charms the window open. 

‘Potter,’ he greets. 

‘I don’t know if you remember,’ Potter says, ‘but I owe you a bottle of wine from months ago.’ 

‘Finally,’ Blaise says. Blaise had not forgotten. Blaise had also not let any of the rest of the house forget. It had become something of a running joke. Nothing to drink with dinner? Well, they _would_ have something if Harry Potter would finally get them that bottle he’s been holding out on. Late birthday present? Well, don’t worry, we’re still waiting on Potter to get round to stopping by with that bottle he owes us. 

Draco stands up, unwrapping himself from the blanket burrito he has constructed. There is a strange hollow feeling curling in his chest. He feels almost melancholic, letting himself simmer in his half-forgotten affection for Blaise all evening only to have Potter materialise at the window. Unattainable. 

Wandering over, Draco comes to lean on the sill and holds his hand out for the bottle. Potter passes it to him. ‘Merry Christmas.’ 

‘What did you do for yours?’ 

‘The Weasley’s.’ Potter rubs his hands together. Even gloved, he looks cold. ‘Ron and Hermione have gone on to spend the week with Mr and Mrs Granger.’ 

‘Ah, so you are all alone. Which is why we are graced with your presence.’ Draco tries to sound snide, but it comes out sincere. Damnit. 

Potter smirks. He glances at the grandfather clock behind Blaise. ‘Fancy a walk?’ he asks.

‘Merlin, you are desperate for company, aren’t you?’ 

‘Maybe a little.’ 

Draco glances behind him, at Blaise - who is still on the couch. ‘Go,’ Blaise says. ‘I’m tired of reading aloud.’ 

Pushing off the sill, Draco makes a move to the door. ‘Let me grab my coat.’ 

Stepping onto the front steps and closing the door behind him, he is struck with a sudden icy wind. It is well after dark - not yet quite an unreasonable hour, but late enough that the already cold weather has turned bitterly chill. The street lights are shrouded in fog and snow flakes flutter through the air around him. Wrapping his jacket tightly around him, he ducks down to the street to join Potter and wonders at himself for agreeing to join him. 

He should have invited Potter indoors. That would have been more seasonally appropriate. 

But Potter doesn’t seem too put off by the cold. The scarf around his neck is thick and bundled up tightly, and he’s clad in warm clothes from head to toe. Draco takes a moment to cast a couple of warming charms on his own gloves and scarf, and a second later it’s not so bad. 

‘This way,’ Potter suggests, tilting his head in the direction which leads away from the main village. It is a quiet road, and a good choice for a night like this. The path is protected from the bitter wind by the Forbidden Forest on one side, and a line of back-fences on the other. Draco falls into step beside Potter, boots crunching in the thin layer of snow. 

‘You didn’t come to the Christmas Party,’ says Potter. ‘The one at the Hog’s Head.’ 

Draco frowns. ‘I didn’t. Was it fun?’ 

‘Yeah, it was a good evening.’ 

‘It wouldn’t have been if we had been there.’ 

Potter pauses for a long moment and then says, ‘I guess you’re right. Didn’t think of it like that.’ He lets out a breath which condenses immediately on the air. ‘How was your Christmas?’ 

‘Good,’ answers Draco. ‘Quiet.’ He deliberately stops there. Seems unwise to speak too much of his mother or father or the manor around Potter. ‘Nice having the house just to me and Blaise.’ 

Potter grins. ‘It looked nice,’ he comments teasingly. ‘Was he reading to you?’ 

‘Yes.’ 

‘Sorry to interrupt.’ 

Draco shrugs. ‘Quite alright.’ They have turned into the narrow path that runs alongside the forest now. There is very little light: only the low golden flickering coming from people’s windows. No street-lamps. The forest looks still and calm, but it still makes Draco a little uneasy. He has never liked it. It seems to swallow darkness and the wind rustling the branches always sounds like unnatural movement. 

But Potter is not bothered by it, and having him walking beside him eases Draco’s discomfort somewhat. Rather than seeming creepy, the quiet path feels private. 

‘We ate too much and had some wine,’ Draco adds. ‘It’s probably best I walk it off and sober up in the cold.’ 

Potter laughs. ‘You ate too much?’ 

‘Blaise is an excellent cook.’ 

‘I can cook.’ 

Draco glances at him with a smirk. ‘It’s not a competition,’ he says smoothly. ‘How about your cousin? Did you see him for Christmas?’ 

‘Nah, that would have meant seeing my aunt and uncle. I called him on Boxing Day though. He’s good. Same as ever.’ 

‘And… how is patching it up with him going?’ 

Potter shrugs, looking out into the forest. ‘Dunno. He’s, er, making an effort. Not great at it though. He sent me a packet of bath bombs for Christmas. I think he bought them from a chemist?’ 

Snickering, Draco looks down at him. ‘Nothing wrong with bath bombs.’ 

‘Muggle ones aren’t quite as good as wizard ones, though. Hermione did use one. There’s still glitter in her hair. And in the tub. And, well, everywhere in the house, to be honest.’ 

They walk in silence for a couple of moments, listening to a child in one of the houses nearby screaming about not wanting to get ready for bed. 

‘Potter,’ Draco says after a while, curiosity pricking at him. ‘What is it about your aunt and uncle that’s so terrible?’ 

Potter starts. ‘Huh? Why would you ask about them?’ 

‘Because…’ Draco trails off, before taking a breath. ‘No, it’s stupid. We always just thought it was, hypocritical, I guess. How much you hated them, but acted so high and mighty when we…’ 

‘Called people mudbloods and supported the torture of muggles and muggleborns?’ Potter’s voice is as cold as the biting wind. 

Draco runs a gloved hand over his face. ‘Mm. Forget I asked.’ 

‘No, no, heaven forbid you think I’m a _hypocrite_.’ Potter sounds genuinely angry now. ‘I’ll tell you why I hate them. Just like some wizards are fucking _arseholes_ -’ (It’s pointed, and directed at Draco.) ‘- some muggles keep children in tiny cupboards for their entire childhood and lock them in rooms over summer holidays and install bars on their windows and feed them cold, tinned soup through a cat-flap installed in the door.’ 

‘I…’ Draco has nothing to say. ‘I… Is that why-’ 

‘Why I’m so short? Maybe.’ 

For a moment, a million apologies cluster and die on Draco’s tongue. He can’t get them past his teeth. They all sound like lies. Finally he asks, ‘Did Dumbledore know?’ 

It’s clearly not what Potter was expecting him to say. ‘Oh.’ He looks startled. ‘I, er, I guess maybe. Yes. I think so.’ 

‘I’m sorry,’ Draco manages. ‘You didn’t have to - prove that.’ 

‘I ‘spose one day I’ll authorize a biography and everyone will know.’ 

‘No, you won’t.’ 

Potter grimaces, almost a smile. ‘No, I won’t.’ Then he scrubs his hand over his face. ‘You do realise how stupid it was to think me a hypocrite because, because... _right_?’

‘Yes. I… realize that now.’

‘Good. Then, okay.’

They lapse into silence. Draco dances with the thought of apologising again. Potter still seems to be simmering.

But they've been mad at each other a million times, maybe this is a good natural state. It used to be a coping mechanism for Draco. Get Potter mad at him so that at least he was _thinking_ about him. If he couldn't get his affection he could get his irritation and that was close enough. 

Is it now? 

But then out of nowhere, Potter asks: ‘Do you still fancy Blaise?’

An automatic reflex: ‘I never- I mean, he’s attractive, but…’

Potter laughs. ‘You're pretty close friends, right?’

‘Uh, no. It's awkward as fuck. He keeps me at an arm's length.’

‘That seems like it's just him?’

Draco concedes the point. ‘Perhaps. Why do you ask?’

‘You were all cuddled up tonight. I thought he might, I thought maybe I was intruding.’

‘If anything were to happen with me and Blaise, I'd probably thank you for slapping me out of it.’

‘Why's that?’

‘It would last five minutes and he'd get Pansy in the divorce.’

‘Really? _He_ hasn't been Pansy's boyfriend since fourth year.’

‘I honestly had no idea you all thought that.’

As the conversation drifts in more pleasant directions, Draco relaxes. The cold becomes less biting and Potter starts to talk about easy things, like quidditch and potions homework.

‘You're going to have to understand it soon, Potter,’ Draco is saying about a sobering potion. ‘It doesn't matter if you can brew it - the theory will be on the exam.’

‘Yeah, but Hermione can-’

Suddenly, Potter freezes in his steps. Draco takes several steps forward before he turns on the spot to look at him in confusion. ‘What are you waiting for?’ he asks. The warming charms on his clothes are starting to wear off, and he wouldn’t mind looping around and heading home soon, before the night gets too dark and cold. 

But Potter is staring into the dense forest, peering intently between the trees and pulling out his wand. ‘I heard something,’ he says, in a low voice. He takes a step toward the tree-line and Draco tilts his head back, looking up at the starry sky and silently begging for anything but _this_. He was having a good walk, enjoying Potter’s company. He doesn’t need werewolves or banshees or whatever else lives in the Forbidden Forest to make his night complete. 

Tentatively, he comes up behind Potter. ‘The wind?’ 

‘No, it sounded like… someone shouting?’ 

‘Oh, perfect,’ drawls Draco. He reaches out and tugs at the back of Potter’s jacket. ‘Come on. Let’s go back.’

‘No!’ Potter snaps his hand back and grabs Draco’s wrist. Even through his padded gloves, his grip is strong and it locks Draco in place. ‘We have to see what-’

Potter cuts himself off and, bloody hell, Draco hears it. There is someone calling out inside the forest, but barely audible through the trees and over the wind. But they sound panicked, and… young. 

‘Is that someone from the school?’ Draco asks. He can hear his own voice wavering. ‘A student?’ 

Potter shakes his head. ‘Maybe.’ He lets go of Draco’s wrist, and - surprising himself - Draco doesn’t move. He watches as Potter reaches into his jacket and tugs out that blasted invisibility cloak. It shimmers in the moonlight, liquid silver, swallowing Potter’s hands into the shadows. 

Potter holds it up. ‘Under here,’ he urges. 

Draco eyes it. ‘Is this necessary?’ 

‘We don’t know what’s in there.’ 

‘I’m taller than you,’ Draco points out skeptically. ‘Also, I don’t want to go into the forest.’ 

‘Stay here then,’ Potter says. ‘Go get help. But I’m going in.’ 

‘No, I…’ Draco flounders only for a moment before ducking his head and joining Potter under the cloak. It’s warm, at least. He’s pressed up right next to Potter, sharing body heat as they move slowly into the forest. 

He can’t help but feel like Potter is secretly excited. This feels so bloody typical. Join Potter on an evening stroll, end up heading into the Forbidden Forest to rescue a Hogwarts Student from a werewolf attack. What else would they have ended up doing?

They move slowly, hindered by the cloak. Draco is sure their feet are showing, but the forest floor is covered in roots and sludge and it probably doesn’t matter too much as long as they move quietly. Potter has his wand out and Draco draws his too, keeping it at the ready as they make their way into the dense woods. Each step crunches on the ground, sounding too loud to Draco’s ears.

‘Which direction did the shout come from?’ Potter murmurs, his voice close and low. 

Draco looks around. It was hard to tell - the forest distorts and echoes sound, and the caller had not been particularly close. He gestures vaguely in the direction of Hogwarts. ‘That way?’ They are not following any path right now. Draco doesn’t think there are any defined paths in this part of the forest, but he can’t be sure. 

They are walking for only a minute or two before they hear another shout, this time closer. ‘Help!’ the voice calls out through the trees. It is definitely a child, and Draco feels Potter freeze beside him, clearly trying to pin down the direction. ‘Please, someone, help!’ 

It sounds like the child is crying. 

‘This way!’ Potter says, grabbing Draco by the arm again and tugging him forward. Stumbling slightly, he follows, cursing the cloak billowing around them and making it hard to move, along with the twisted roots which weave the undergrowth. 

‘Hello?’ the voice calls out through the trees. 

Potter tugs off the cloak and shoves it back into his jacket with the hand still holding his wand as he runs. Draco follows in step, peeling his eyes through the trees around them as they dash past. He keeps his grandfather’s wand at the ready, sure that something, _something_ in the forest is going to notice them any moment now. 

But then they stumble past a line of trees and find the child. She is sitting on the forest floor, gripping her leg tightly and looking around in panic. 

‘Lumos,’ Harry says quickly, pointing his own wand at her. In the light, Draco can see a tear in her Hogwarts robes and blood spilling freely from a gash in her leg. She is no older than twelve. ‘Are you okay?’ 

‘We can’t stay here!’ the girl cries. ‘It’s going to find us!’ 

Draco’s heart thuds in his chest. ‘ _What_ is?’ 

‘Can you mo-’ Potter starts to ask, but is cut off by a low rumbling in the trees. Beneath them, the ground seems to shake and there is a vague rumbling which sounds like thunder. Draco takes a step closer to Potter, reaching out to grab his elbow. 

‘What the fuck was that?’ 

‘I don’t-’ 

‘It’s heard me!’ the girl sobs. ‘It’s coming to eat us.’

Draco blanches. ‘Eat us?!’ 

‘Calm down,’ Potter says, dropping down to kneel in front of the Hogwarts student. ‘Malfoy, are you any good at healing spells?’ 

‘Y-yes, I can-’ Draco steadies his grip on his wand and steps forward. 

‘Quickly,’ Potter says. ‘And we’ll get out of here.’ 

‘Let me see that,’ Draco says to the girl, who blinks at him for a moment before pulling her torn robes aside to give him access to the gash in her leg. It runs from knee to ankle, curving around her calf and bleeding freely. 

‘You’re Harry Potter,’ the girl says. 

‘Yeah,’ Potter says. 

‘You’re Harry Potter and I’m being chased by a giant.’ Her voice sounds kind of distant. ‘This can’t be real.’ 

Draco finishes casting his healing spell. The wound in her leg knits itself back together. ‘I don’t have time to clean up the blood,’ he says. ‘We have to go.’ 

‘Did you say a giant?’ Potter asks. To Draco’s absolute disbelief, he sounds relieved. 

‘All the more reason to _move_ ,’ he points out. Holding out his hand to the Hogwart’s student, Draco helps her to her feet and grips her hand tightly, ready to run. 

But Potter doesn’t make any move to flee. Instead, he turns in the direction of the low rumbling, which is getting closer, and calls out. ‘Grawp, is that you?’ 

The rumbling pauses. Then there are a few heavy, ground trembling footsteps, and a huge, ugly giant appears among the top of the trees, looking down at them. Draco feels his knees grow weak. 

‘Don’t worry,’ Potter says to the girl. ‘He… probably wasn’t trying to hurt you. Were you, Grawp?’ 

The giant grunts in a way which might be affirmative. He is looking down at Potter with recognition and a cocked head. 

‘Lost,’ he rumbles inarticulately, pointing at the girl. 

‘We’ve found her now,’ Potter says. ‘We’ll take her back to the school.’ 

Grawp grunts again, cocks his head the other way, and turns slowly around to lumber off in the opposite direction. After a few moments, he is swallowed by the trees and the earth stops quaking with every footstep. 

‘Grawp isn’t so bad,’ Potter says, turning to face the girl. ‘I think he knew you needed to get back to the school.’ 

Dashing away tears from her face, the girl says in a harder voice: ‘Well, I was hardly going to go with him!’ 

Draco lets out a laugh. It is half relief. Of course Potter is on friendly terms with the giant who lives in the forest. Of course he is. ‘Too right,’ he says. He drops the girl’s hand. 

‘What happened, anyway?’ 

‘I was flying,’ the girl explains. ‘It’s the holidays, so there’s no one at the school. But I saw something moving in the forest - Grawp. And I flew down to look, but lost control of my broom and it broke on the branches and I fell to the ground. That’s how I cut my leg.’ She takes a deep breath. ‘Then I was running and I got lost.’ 

‘You did,’ Draco says. ‘You nearly made it to Hogsmeade.’ 

‘Well, it’ll make for a story.’ Potter grins and casts a quick direction charm on his wand. ‘Come on, we’ll head back to Hogwarts.’ 

The girl looks stricken. ‘It’s been hours, I’m going to be in so much trouble!’ 

‘Don’t worry,’ Potter says. He starts walking through the woods, guiding them back to the school. ‘I’ve done worse.’ 

Draco snorts, following. The young student sticks close to his side, watching the forest closely. ‘Yes, but you always did get special treatment.’ 

‘I didn’t!’ 

The walk back to the school takes well over an hour - they move slowly, because the girl, whose name turns out to be Ennis, is still bruised from her fall and exhausted. But the route is uneventful. They do find a small nest of doxies which Draco requests they stop at so that he can collect a few eggs - they will be useful to a potion he is working on. Ennis eventually begins to quiz Potter on all aspects of being saviour of wizardkind, which visibly annoys him - although he hides it well from Ennis, indulging her. Draco manages to change the topic by getting Ennis to start complaining about a classmate of hers called Philip who is apparently _the worst_. 

Finally they make it to the edge of the forest and Potter pauses. ‘You good from here?’ he asks Ennis with a grin. 

She bites her lip. ‘Yeah,’ she says. ‘As long as Filch doesn’t get me.’ 

Potter pulls out his invisibility cloak again and passes it to her. ‘Here, take this. Use it to get back to your common room.’ 

She looks at him with awe. ‘Really?’ 

‘Yeah. I’ll be at the school next Tuesday for Defence. Find me at lunch time and give it back?’ 

Ennis lights up. ‘Of course!’ 

‘But keep it a secret.’

‘I will!’ 

And with a wave to the both of them, Ennis literally disappears. Draco watches as the faint impression of her running footsteps in the snow make their way toward the tall doors of the castle. He turns to Potter - who is grinning widely. 

‘What are you so happy about?’ 

‘Er. That was just… eventful,’ Potter says. ‘Made a nice change.’ 

Maybe Potter is mad. Potter _must be_ mad. ‘Well, I’m glad you’ve enjoyed yourself,’ Draco replies skeptically. 

‘It’s been a quiet year.’ 

‘It’s been a _good_ year.’ 

Potter looks at him, seemingly in surprise. ‘You think so?’ 

 

‘You don’t?’

‘I guess I, uh. Yeah. Sure. I’m just not used to anything… being like this. Normal?’ 

Draco nods. ‘No. It’s been a while.’ 

They stand at the forest edge for a moment. The shadows of the trees fall around them, shifting as the bitter wind rustles through the trees. Draco’s gaze wanders over to the castle. Most of the lights are out, but a few spots of flickering gold are still lit - a couple in a high tower, and scattered across the castle. Teachers and students working late, most likely. 

He wraps his arms tighter around his body and says to Potter. ‘We don’t have to go back through the forest.’ 

‘No, we’ll take the path,’ Potter agrees, and they begin to wander in the direction of the road which leads to Hogsmeade. It’s technically a longer walk, but it will take less time - they won’t be picking their way across forest floor. And they are much less likely to be attacked by anything unpleasant. 

‘I hope Ennis makes it back to her common room alright,’ Potter says. ‘Mrs. Norris is a bit funny about the cloak.’ 

‘What house was she in? If she’s going downstairs she’ll be fine.’ 

‘There are a few good secret passages to the Gryffindor tower,’ Potter says. 

‘Lucky.’ The snow is crunching underfoot, soaking slowly into Draco’s boots. The forest floor had been fine, but out here it has had time to settle. ‘We had nothing going to our common room.’ 

‘That you know of,’ Potter says with a smirk. ‘You never found the one behind the painting of the Prospero?’ 

‘How on earth would you know secret passages to the Slytherin common room, Potter?’

With a hand movement that seems to say _I know many things_ , Potter shrugs him off. ‘I once got stuck for an hour behind that statue of Donnubáin on your floor, you know,’ he says, and gets them to the path by telling Draco the story of some late night exploits for which Draco is absolutely sure several, if not more, details are extremely fudged. 

‘You miss the school,’ he says when the story is over.

Potter slips his hands into his pockets and shakes his head. ‘Not really. Sometimes. But it would feel like… regression, if we were still living there, wouldn’t it?’ 

‘Yes.’ 

‘Hermione says we all have to move forward.’ 

‘If Hermione Granger jumped off a broom…’ 

Potter laughs. ‘Malfoy,’ he asks after a moment, ‘what are you doing after school? You’re studying a lot this year, but what are you planning to do?’ 

The moon comes out from behind a cloud above them, painting the snow scattered road back to Hogsmeade silver. Unsurprisingly, they are the only people out at this time of night and in this weather. Draco glances and meets Potter’s eyes. ‘I have no fucking idea,’ he says honestly. 

‘What? Really? But your -’ 

‘I’m keeping my options open. Father says…’ Draco takes a deep breathe through his nose. ‘I don’t know. I don’t want to go work for the Ministry. That would be an uphill climb. I’m thinking I’ll just…’ 

‘You’ll?’ 

‘Next year, I think I want to just leave. Travel for a while. Go somewhere no one knows who I am or what I did.’ 

It takes Potter a while to respond, long enough that Draco has to pause and turn to look back at him. He has frozen in his step a few feet back on the path. He is staring at Draco. 

‘What?’ 

‘That’s…’ Potter clears his throat. ‘That’s a great idea.’ He takes a jerky movement forward and falls into step next to Draco again. ‘A really good idea. Maybe I should do the same.’ 

Draco arches an eyebrow. ‘You’d fall behind schedule to become Head Auror at the age of twenty-two.’ 

Potter’s laugh is more like a cough. ‘True.’ 

‘That is still the plan, isn’t it?’ 

‘Something like that, but.’ Potter shrugs. ‘I’m not… Shit, I haven’t told anyone this, but I… don’t think I want to do that, anymore.’ 

‘So you have some sense after all.’ 

‘For not wanting to be an auror, or not telling anyone?’ 

‘Both.’ Draco smiled wryly at him. ‘Can’t imagine they’ll take it well. I’ll tell you something Potter, and I don’t want you reading anything into this because your head is quite big enough already - but there is something very comforting to knowing that Harry Potter is there to save you. And I doubt anyone wants to let that go.’ 

Draco knows he has said much too much, but Potter, bless his heart, seems to take Draco’s advice and barely responds except to nod in understanding. 

‘Sorry this walk didn’t quite go as planned,’ he says a while later, as they approach the village. It is very late - well past a reasonable bedtime, and Draco is so cold now that his fingers and toes have gone completely numb. Potter also looks freezing. He is shivering and his teeth are chattering. 

They reach his house first. They pause at the gate, and Potter reaches out to open it and says, ‘I’ll try not to drag you on any more late night adventures.’ 

‘So long as they don’t involve giants, I think I’ll cope.’

Potter seems to hesitate for a moment, but just as Draco is making a move to step away and head back to his own place, he feels a gloved hand reach out and touch his arm. ‘Come inside for a moment,’ Potter says. ‘I have something I want to - just come inside.’ 

Potter doesn't need to say it twice. With a feeling like a hook in his stomach, Draco follows him. 

*

The interior of Potter’s house is warm. Draco steps into the hallway behind him with a sigh of relief, pulling off his gloves and rubbing feeling back into his fingers. Potter is waving his hand to turn on all the lights in the downstairs part of the house, and as he does so a fire in the living room flickers merrily into life. 

Potter toes off his boots and unwraps his scarf from around his neck, throwing it over the back of one of the kitchen chairs. 

‘Take off your shoes for a moment,’ Potter tells him. ‘Better than tracking mud upstairs.’ 

Between the lateness of the hour and the expectant feeling of the empty house, Draco’s heart begins to flutter at the base of his throat, cautious and hopeful. ‘Upstairs?’ he asks, aiming for nonchalant. 

Pulling his coat off his shoulders, Potter shakes melting snowflakes from his hair and motions for Draco to follow him. ‘Yeah, just up to my bedroom for a tick.’ 

There might be a pixie trying to escape Draco’s chest. He takes off his own coat, hanging it on one of the hooks next to the front door, and crosses the hall to follow Potter up the creaky staircase. 

The inside of the Potter-Granger-Weasley residence is cozy and haphazardly decorated. They have acquired a lot more stuff since the last time Draco was inside - there are books everywhere, for one thing. They aren’t lying around. They are neatly organised; but it is clear that the organisation is makeshift. There are bookshelves charmed into being in places they shouldn’t be, like in the rafters above doorframes and in the nooks next to windows. There are also more Chudley Cannons posters than Draco is comfortable with. One has pride of place above the fireplace. 

Potter catches Draco looking at the orange clad figures zooming back and forth. ‘You learn to live with it,’ he says. 

‘I can’t imagine so.’ 

Orange seems to be the colour of the house. In addition to the quidditch merchandise, there is also the huge cat who watches them from the top of the staircase as they climb up. He has a felt toy fish in his mouth, which is wriggling - clearly enchanted. But his gaze is stern and lingers on Draco for a long time. 

‘Evening, Crookshanks,’ Potter says to the cat as they reach the landing. 

The cat mreows, and drops the fish. Prowling forward, he pushes past Potter and sniffs at Draco’s ankles. Draco clucks his tongue and reaches down to let the cat sniff his fingertips. He does so, cold nose bumping Draco’s hand, and then he turns tail and stalks away on gangly legs, bushy tail in the air. 

Potter is waiting at the door to his bedroom. It is the furthest one on the landing; actually at the top of another small half-flight of stairs so that it sits at the highest point of the house. Draco scratches his neck nervously as he walks across the landing. His footsteps seem to thud loudly on the wooden floor in the silence of the house. Potter seems hesitant too. He stays by the door as he gestures Draco through, and says, ‘Uh, just sit down for a few.’ 

Draco drops down onto the end of Potter’s unmade bed. The room is a pigsty. Clothes litter the floor and most draws are half open, spilling robes and oddities out at random. All surfaces are covered in school work or quidditch supplies, or little defensive doodads like sneakoscopes and foe-mirrors which would have the place looking like a crazy dark wizard hunter’s sanctum if it was not also evidently a teenage boy’s bedroom. There is a skylight in the ceiling which casts the room in dull moonlight. 

‘Ignore the mess,’ Potter mutters. He is looking around the room, scanning for something. ‘I just gotta remember where I…’ 

‘Potter, unless there is an unseen order to this chaos, we may be here for days.’ 

‘It’s not that bad.’ 

Draco bites his tongue and watches as Potter drops down to his knees next to his dresser and starts digging around in the mess. He feels like he should do something - he is in Potter’s bedroom, late at night, and that part of his brain that is desperately whispering to him about how cute Potter is really wants him to make some sort of move. But the part of his brain that is his mother saying _do be careful_ keeps him sitting still and tense. He lets his fingers tangle in Potter’s bedsheet as he waits for Potter to find whatever it is he is looking for. 

‘Can’t you just summon it?’ he says after a few long moments. But as he finishes the sentence, Potter exclaims, ‘Ah ha!’ triumphantly and grabs something from the drawer. He turns around, holding out -

‘My wand,’ Draco says flatly.

‘I’ve had it sitting here for ages,’ Potter says. ‘You should have it back.’ 

Draco stares at it, surprised by his own sense of disbelief. Somewhere in the back of his mind he knew Potter had it, but it never occurred to him to ask after it, or…

It is an odd feeling, like seeing a lost limb being held out to him. Potter’s fingers are held loosely around it, and it is only inches away. He is clearly expected to take it. But Draco doesn’t move. 

‘Go on,’ Potter prompts him. ‘It’s yours. Must be better than that one you’re using at the moment.’ 

Draco feels his voice catch in his throat. ‘I don’t want it back,’ he says, surprising himself again. Why not? He can barely use his grandfather’s wand - it is sluggish and heavy, difficult to cast with and feels like stone in his hand. ‘Keep it.’ 

Potter’s brow is furrowed. He stands up, but doesn’t stop holding the wand out in front of him, offering it. ‘No, there’s no reason… Why don’t you want it? It’s a good wand.’ 

_I don’t know_ , Draco’s mind says, but his mouth says, ‘I want a new one,’ and the moment the words are out he knows they are true. ‘I want to find a new wand. That one isn’t mine anymore.’ He pauses and clarifies. ‘It’s not _me_ anymore.’ 

Potter stares at him for a long time and for a moment he almost looks annoyed, like he is going to blow up at Draco. But the expression clears almost immediately and he just slowly drops the wand back into the drawer and moves to sit down on the mattress next to him. ‘You don’t think it would work?’ 

‘I don’t want to find out.’ 

Potter nods. He starts to pluck at his quilt, his fingers only a few inches away from where Draco is still gripping the bedsheets. Draco forces himself to relax his grip, to let out a tense breath. 

Potter is looking down at his own knees, and Draco lets his gaze linger on his profile. He swallows down words a few times before glancing at the time. ‘Shit,’ he says. ‘It’s very late. I should - you’ll want to get to bed, I assume? I should head home.’

Abruptly, Potter looks up. He looks at Draco with his lips parted, tongue darting out to wet them. 

He says, ‘You don’t have to.’ 

Draco silently wishes that Pansy was here to grab him by the ear and pull him out of the room. But she isn’t, so Draco just clears his throat and says, ‘... No?’ 

Potter’s lips are still cold from being outside. His fingers are too, when they brush Draco’s neck and slide into his hair. But they warm up quickly. Draco lets out a shaky breath against Potter’s mouth and reaches out to grab the hem of his jumper and pull him closer. 

It’s not a long kiss. It is a first kiss which ends with Potter pulling away and laughing under his breath, not meeting Draco’s eyes. ‘I did mean,’ he starts, stammering. ‘It is ridiculously late.’ Glancing at his watch: ‘Or early. We should… sleep.’ 

‘Uh huh,’ Draco agrees, and the hammering in his chest threatens to burst. But he can’t stop himself from chuckling along when Potter laughs nervously again and stands up to ready himself for bed. 

*

Draco wakes up bathed in late morning sunlight in the unfamiliar bed. It is disorienting for a long moment as he lies still, eyes closed, and registers the strange shape of the pillow, the pleasant but unknown smell of the blankets and the warmth emanating from the body next to him. 

His first sight when he blinks his eyes groggily open is of Potter’s messy hair falling on the pillow only a few inches away, the curve of his neck and back facing away from him. Draco’s leg is pushed between Potter’s and his hand is resting loosely on Potter’s hip. 

The feeling Draco wakes up to is somewhere perfectly on the cusp of terror and euphoria. 

He lies there for a long time, not moving. He wants to drift back to sleep and enjoy this for longer. He wants Potter to wake up. He wants Potter to _not_ wake up and for this moment, half-awake, to stretch for eternity. 

But he needs to take a piss. 

As carefully and unobtrusively as possible, Draco extracts himself from the bed and silently pads across the bedroom and onto the landing. He knows where the toilets are, thanks to the almost identical layout of this house to his own. Deciding to use the one downstairs to avoid noise and waking Potter up, Draco slips down to the kitchen. He is barely aware that he’s only wearing his boxer shorts and a t-shirt borrowed from Potter last night to sleep in, until he realises how chilly it is. Half-running across the cold stone of the kitchen floor toward the bathroom, he waves a hand in the direction of the fire, charming it into life with one of the only wandless spells he knows. 

The flush of the toilet rattles up through the rickety walls of the house, and he washes his hands in the spray of an equally tremulous tap. He entertains the thought of going back up to bed and climbing in with Potter again, but it seems strangely presumptuous. So instead he heads back into the kitchen and sets about making coffee for them both. He will bring the coffee upstairs, wake Potter, and they will talk. 

That is the plan. It is a plan rudely interrupted by cheerful chatter outside the front door and the sound of a key turning in the lock. Draco hardly has time to freeze before the door swings open and Granger and Weasley storm into the hallway, calling out, ‘Hey, Harry, we’re home!’ 

‘He must still be asleep,’ Draco hears Granger say, when they receive no response. Then, with a small amount of luggage in tow, the two of them make their past the entrance and into the kitchen/diner and freeze as they see Draco standing at the bench holding two mugs and wearing only his pants and one of Potter’s t-shirts. 

Granger’s hands fly to her mouth. Weasley just gapes. 

‘Ah,’ Draco says. He places the mugs slowly down on the bench. 

Granger is the first to recover. To Draco’s surprise, she simply lowers her hands and forces a neutral expression and says, ‘Oh, Malfoy. You scared me, I had no idea you’d be here this morning.’

To Draco’s even greater shock, Weasley follows suit and asks, stiltedly, ‘You looking for the coffee, mate?’ 

It is with suspicion that Draco notes they are both doing an unbelievable job of feigning acting casual. Weasley has wandered into the room and lugged his travel bag onto the kitchen table. He is unzipping it and not looking at Draco - instead just unpacking tupperware container after tupperware container, full of homemade meals and sweets. Granger is following him into the kitchen. She bends down to heft up her enormous cat, who has bolted across the house to greet them, into her arms. 

‘Yes?’ Draco says. 

‘We only have instant,’ Granger says. ‘It’s in that cupboard there.’ She coos at her cat, kissing his fluffy head. ‘Harry takes his with one sugar and milk, if you don’t know.’ 

Still wary, Draco pulls out the bag of coffee and spoons granules into both mugs. 

‘I can’t believe how much food mum gave us,’ Weasley says to Granger. ‘I think she’s worried we only live on crisps and cup-a-soup.’ 

‘Well, if it were up to you,’ she replies pointedly, ignoring Draco as he pours boiling water into the mugs and edges towards the fridge for milk. ‘Just stack it in the freezer, you can enlarge it if you need to.’ 

Weasley pulls off the lid to one of the containers, sniffing what is inside. ‘Eugh! Does Harry like tuna casserole?’ 

‘No, he doesn’t like it either.’ 

‘Great,’ Weasley says, and opens the next box. ‘Ooh, rum balls!’ 

Draco finishes stirring milk and sugar into the mugs and slips the carton back into the fridge. He grabs the mugs off the bench and shuffles away from the kitchen, trying not to be too barely dressed too obviously. 

‘Take one of these up to Harry,’ Weasley calls out suddenly, holding out a paper bag. Draco freezes again and awkwardly peels two fingers off the handle of one coffee mugs to take the bag from Weasley. ‘Pastries. For breakfast. There’s a couple in there.’ 

‘Cheers,’ Draco says. ‘I’m just going to… go upstairs.’ 

‘You do that,’ Weasley replies. 

He has to take the stairs slowly, so as not to spill coffee or drop the precariously held pastries. Without looking back, he can sense two sets of eyes following him, and he hears Weasley whisper, ‘What the fu-’ before Granger cuts him off with a sharp _Shh!_

Draco has to try desperately not to snicker. 

Merlin, it would be nice to be wearing trousers. 

The door to Potter’s bedroom is still wide open, a few hoodies managing to slip past the threshold as though making a daring escape for the landing. Potter is sitting up in bed, looking like he only just stirred. The blankets are pooled at his waist and his baggy t-shirt is hanging off one shoulder. He is rubbing at his eye with one fist and his hair is sticking up everywhere, frizzy and unkempt. 

‘Did I hear Ron and Her-Hermione downstairs?’ he asks around a yawn. 

Draco leans against the inside of the door to push it closed. He can feel his cheeks burning up, flushing all the way down his neck. ‘They just got in,’ he answers. He puts down both coffee mugs on Potter’s nightstand, on top of a copy of the Quibbler. _Thirty-four Unconventional Uses for Niffler Droppings_. ‘They gave me these pastries and told me how you like your coffee.’ 

Potter holds out his hand for the paper bag and peeks inside, a pleased smirk dancing around his lips. ‘And you were in your pants?’ 

Draco can hear his voice rise an octave, even as he tries to sound accusatory. ‘They barely reacted! How many boys and girls do you have up here that your sidekicks don’t even _respond_ when they see _me_ in your kitchen half-naked?’ 

Potter looks nonplussed. ‘What? None, I-’ Then he bursts into laughter and falls back on his pillows, hands coming up over his face. The bag of pastries rolls off to land on a quidditch repair kit sitting half under the bed. He laughs so hard, gasping for breath and shaking, that Draco just glares at him. 

‘ _Potter_.’ 

‘They think-’ Potter tries to speak, but drowns himself out with more laughter several times before he finally manages to wipe his eyes and get out: ‘They think we’ve been hooking up for ages.’ 

Draco flushes even harder. ‘Ex _cuse_ me?’ 

‘Hermione has been dropping hints for ages that they’re “okay with it”,’ Potter chuckles breathlessly. ‘I thought she was just, ha, I thought she just meant that I liked you. But they must actually think I’ve been sneaking you in here.’ He fans himself. ‘That’s why Ron has started knocking on my door lately and refusing to come into my room. Oh, god. Why am I always the last to catch on?’ 

Draco tries to keep glaring, but slowly his lips break into a grin which he hides behind the back of his hand. Potter looks good laughing and half awake, streaked in morning sunlight. It is a sight Draco would be perfectly happy to get used to. 

‘I suppose I should be grateful I was not forcibly removed from the house.’ 

‘It’s not too late,’ Potter says, but reaches out for Draco’s hand and tugs him closer - off balance. Falling, Draco catches himself on the bed with his free hand so that he is bent over Potter, inches away. 

‘Would you like breakfast?’ he murmurs. 

‘Later,’ Potter replies, and kisses him. Morning breath, messy beds, pastries tumbling to the floor: none of it matters. Potter is lying beneath him, sliding a hand down Draco’s back to pull him closer, to shift them together. Blankets tangle at their feet. Potter is warm and hard, pressed against him. 

Draco says, ‘Your friends -’ 

‘I’ve had to listen to them for months,’ Potter replies. ‘They can deal with it.’ 

*

‘You’re in a good mood,’ Pansy says, dusting floo-powder out of her hair and eyeing Draco suspiciously. She has only just returned from her parents’ house. Goyle got back a day ago. 

Draco is sitting on the two seater with his feet in Goyle’s lap as he reads Blaise’s dogeared copy of Misery. ‘I have no idea what you mean,’ he says loftily. He knows smugness is radiating off him in waves, along with a general aura of being recently and repeatedly shagged. But he will not admit to that. That would be crass. 

Goyle has not noticed at all. Which is why he’s Draco’s best friend. 

Blaise, meanwhile, has been surly since yesterday morning with the knowledge that the house would be full again. ‘Ech,’ he says, in Draco’s general direction. 

Draco smirks. 

With narrowed eyes, Pansy looks him top to toe and drops her travel bag to the floor to stalk closer. Pink-tipped nails snatch the book out of his hands and hold it out of Draco’s reach as she bends down to peer into his face. ‘Now what _is_ it,’ she muses slyly. ‘Did you get something good for Christmas?’ 

‘Nothing better than usual,’ Draco replies, sitting up to try and grab the book back. ‘Hey, I’m reading.’ 

Blaise hisses from the other chair. ‘Don’t. Mess up. My book.’ 

‘No, I know you Draco,’ Pansy whines, dragging out her words. ‘Something happened. What is it? _Tell me_.’ 

‘Pants, don’t be a -’

‘He’s been shagging Potter,’ Blaise interjects dryly. 

Pansy lets out an ear-splitting screech, dropping the novel. 

‘It’s all he’s been talking about for days, when he hasn’t been off doing it. Or dragging Potter upstairs and doing it _here_ , unbearably.’ 

Pansy grabs the cushion from behind Draco’s shoulders and begins beating him with it. ‘You didn’t floo me!’ she shouts between heavy thumps. ‘You asshole! You’re terrible! I hate you!’ She hits him again, right in the dick, and then drops down onto his lap so that her weight is on both Draco and Goyle. ‘Tell me everything.’ 

Blaise sighs and leaves the room. 

Goyle looks between Pansy and Draco in confusion, thick brow furrowing in one heavy straight line. ‘Who’ve you been shagging?’ he asks, dumbfounded. 

‘I love you,’ Draco tells him sincerely. 

*

On his birthday, Draco books a table for seven at the Three Broomsticks. The weather is sticky and warm, unusually so even for the time of year, and everyone has been forced to shed their robes for muggle t-shirts and trousers. No one is relaxed. For his entire Hogwarts career, Draco Malfoy has been forced to sit his exams on his birthday: no matter his crimes, surely that is punishment enough. 

His final exam is tomorrow - Ancient Runes - and he feels like he should be at home cramming last minute revision in and crying. He might start crying anyway. He shouldn’t be out having dinner with his friends and Potter, and Potter’s friends. He knows his eyes are bloodshot and exhausted, and his leg won’t stop twitching. 

The only comfort is that Granger is in a worse state than him. She actually has brought her Runes textbook to dinner, and she’s more or less ignoring them all in favour of murmuring notes to herself under her breath. 

‘Draco, darling, _relax_ ,’ Pansy reminds him, eyeing him up and down. ‘It’s your fucking birthday. Have a beer.’ 

‘I’m fine,’ he snaps. 

It’s alright for Pansy - and Weasley. Both of them have finished their exams and are celebrating. The tension has vanished from their shoulders and they scooted up to the bar before anyone else to grab first drinks. Everyone else has at least one more exam to sit. Why didn’t Draco leave this until the weekend? Terrible ideas of terrible ideas. 

As he’s fretting, Potter returns from the bar, sliding into the seat next to him and sliding his arm around the back of Draco’s own. He’s good at compartmentalising, Potter - he looked pallid and sick this morning before his Potions NEWT. Now that it is over he seems to be in high spirits, as though it had never happened. ‘Ordered,’ he announces to the table, before lowering his voice to Draco only. ‘Alright?’ 

‘I’m going to be sick,’ Draco replies. 

‘It’ll be fine.’ 

‘I hear the Runes exam is the worst there is,’ Granger says from behind her book. ‘One mistake early on can screw up your whole exam if you don’t catch it. I know I’m going to mess it up!’ She slams the textbook shut, the force of the pages closing blowing back her flyaway hair. ‘What if I fail?’ 

‘You won’t fail,’ Weasley and Potter sigh together. 

‘ _I_ might fail,’ Draco says, feeling the colour drain from his cheeks. ‘I know the twat of an examiner in Potions today marked me down for-’ 

Weasley rubs his temples hard. ‘Harry, mate, you're my best friend... but how did you land us with _more_ of this?’ 

‘Pansy, can we move to another table?’ Blaise drawls. 

‘No, everyone just needs to start drinking.’ 

Goyle grunts. 

The Three Broomsticks is mostly empty - it’s early on a weekday afternoon, and the heat has many people lingering outside, enjoying the pleasant day. All the windows in the bar are wide open, letting in the sweet smell of summer flowers and cut grass. Even as he tugs anxiously at the collar of his t-shirt, Draco feels Potter’s warm hand slip down to press into the small of his back. His chair scrapes loudly on the hardwood floor as he pulls it closer, and he brushes his lips to Draco’s jaw in a chaste kiss and says, ‘Just relax this evening. Last exam tomorrow. It’ll be fine.’ 

Draco sighs and leans against him, closing his eyes briefly. 

It’s almost over, he reminds himself as Rosmerta arrives, carrying drinks. He doesn’t look at her, fixing his eyes on the table instead. 

After a beer, things start seeming a little less dire. After food and a second beer, Draco is the closest thing to calm he’s going to be. ‘Did anyone get me a present?’ he asks between dinner and dessert. 

‘No,’ say Blaise, Weasley and Granger simultaneously. Unsurprisingly. 

‘I gave you mine this morning,’ Goyle reminds him, and Draco smiles. 

‘I know,’ he says. ‘I love it.’ The present had been clumsily wrapped in ugly brown paper, but had consisted of a pair of deep greenstone and silver cufflinks and a collection of those blasted books that Blaise has gotten him hooked on. Goyle, for his many, many faults, is fantastic at presents. 

He would suspect Pansy of helping him if Pansy were not prone to the sort of presents which will eventually come back round to her. ‘I’m taking you shopping,’ she says, forebodingly, into her drink. 

Draco looks at Potter with a raised eyebrow. He doesn’t actually expect anything, but watching Potter squirm guiltily is fun. 

But Potter doesn’t squirm. He says, ‘Can we pop out into the courtyard for a moment?’

He stands up, and Pansy wolf-whistles. 

Draco blinks up at him for a moment before rising to his own feet, feeling suddenly nervous. He can’t decide what he fears more - Potter getting him something disgustingly romantic, or the other likely option which is something _huge_ and _dangerous_. He is somehow friends with that Hagrid, after all. 

‘C’mon,’ Potter prompts, and Draco follows - fearfully convinced that he’s about to be given a pet Blast-Ended Skrewt with a bow around her neck and he’s going to have to dump his boyfriend. 

But there is no monstrosity waiting outside. Only the warm breeze and Potter, looking short and sweaty and grinning shyly ear to ear. He reaches into his pocket. ‘I didn’t wanna give you this inside in case you don’t want to…’

‘Oh, fuck,’ Draco says faintly. 

‘But…’ Potter digs further into his jeans, glancing sheepishly at Draco. ‘Sorry, Hermione put an expansion charm on my pocket and it’s a bit - oh, here we are.’ With what seems like a forceful tug, he grunts and pulls out a street sign. 

It says _Buttonwood Dr_ and looks slightly rusted. It’s bent in the middle like it’s been hit by something at least once. Potter holds it out to Draco expectantly. 

Draco takes it. It’s slightly damp, cool metal. ‘You gave me a road sign,’ he points out. ‘You got me a … dented old street sign for my eighteenth birthday.’ 

Potter laughs. ‘No, I didn’t.’ 

‘I don’t-’ 

‘It’s a portkey,’ Potter explains. ‘For 2:36pm Tuesday the 27th. So a few weeks away.’ 

Draco blinks. ‘Where does it go?’ 

‘New Zealand,’ Potter says. ‘Uh, but I can get that changed, the tickets are still… I thought it looked nice there. Skydiving, maybe. You still want to travel?’ 

Draco swallows. ‘Yes.’ 

‘Do you want to - Er. I’ve booked hotels, and stuff. If you want. Only for a couple of weeks.’ 

The warm breeze blows Potter’s hair into his face so that it catches behind his glasses. He looks nervous, but Draco just grins back. ‘Yes,’ he says again. ‘That sounds alright.’

**Author's Note:**

> I'm [orphanghost](http://orphanghost.tumblr.com/) on tumblr!


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